


Oyster Bay

by i_kinda_like_writing



Series: Bucky Barnes' Life [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Blood, Brainwashing, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, But Not Much, Fluff, Friendship, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, Memories, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Violence, but it will be resolved, but not graphic, but not really, it's happy i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 16:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 55,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6617005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_kinda_like_writing/pseuds/i_kinda_like_writing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is tying to fix the wreckage of his mind bit by bit, memory by memory. Through triggers, both good and bad, he's slowly recovering the things he's lost and piecing them back together again to try and figure out who he is now.<br/>He needs a place to stay while he sorts himself out and he finds himself in a small, Long Island town called Oyster Bay.<br/>There, he meets people who help him pick up the pieces of the people he used to be and finally figure out who Bucky Barnes is now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oyster Bay

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I've been working on this for what seems like forever and at first I was never going to post it but after writing 55K I just wanna see how everyone else likes it. This is basically just a 55K story about Bucky remembering his life and learning to live again. It's mostly self-indulgent fluff, but there are a few angsty parts. Oyster Bay is actually a real town that I live near, so most of the places referenced are actually there.  
> I hope you enjoy!

          A nose-dive into the Potomac and a rushed phone call to 911 later he’s fled to a safe house of Hydra’s just outside the city, safer than he’s been for the past 70 years but still not a suitable place to stay too long. Memories are flashing at him, deep red blinding him before being replaced with a shockingly bright blue, none of it making any sense. There’s so much going on in his head, now that it has the freedom to do what it wants, and it’s distracting him from the task at hand.

          He needs to get out of here, out of DC, or else Hydra will find him again. It’s not even the torture or the forcing him to kill again that he’s afraid of; he’s finally gotten the freedom to think, to remember, and if that’s taken from him yet again he doesn’t know if he could manage to take it back another time. The safe house is stocked with various currencies, each containing a few thousand dollars-worth, some granola bars, weapons of different kinds, and a couple changes of clothes. He finds a backpack, takes all of the U.S. money and wraps it in a black t-shirt, shoving it to the bottom of the bag. There’re some nice pants, durable and clean, that he adds, a couple more shirts, a glove for his left hand, and some other items that he also decides to take, just in case.

          Once he’s packed, he tugs a baseball cap low over his face, sticks up the collar of his jacket, and makes sure the several weapons on him (3 knives and two guns) are concealed. Then he leaves without looking back, knowing there’s no way for Hydra to track him and feeling free for the first time in- he doesn’t even know. Walking the streets of D.C. will do nothing but get him noticed, but he still has no idea where to go. A sign with Steve’s face on it gives him an idea.

          Apparently there’s an exhibit on Captain America at the Smithsonian. Going there will give him a chance to sort through his thoughts (not the memories, not yet) and figure out what his next step is. He can’t take his weapons into the museum, so he stashes them along with his bag in an alley about a block away, under some garbage and suitably blending in with the other muted colors. With just enough money for a ticket, he makes his way into the museum and up to the exhibit.

          Going with the crowd and not really paying attention to the pictures and facts around him, he formulates a plan. He’ll need a place to go while he digs through the wreckage of a person he is now, but the only places popping up in his head are disjointed pictures of missions, random places in Europe and the Middle East that accompany the click of guns being put together and screams he thinks he caused. It’s not like he can leave the country easily without a passport, and even if he had one he’d be noticed in a second. When everyone around him stops, he looks up to see a giant blown up photo of what seems to be the Howling Commandos.

          The man on the right, next to who he instantly recognizes as Steve, is familiar. His mind somewhat helpfully supplies glimpses of reflections in puddles on the ground, the face staring back at him from his shiny metal arm when he’d stop in between missions, and what he thinks is an even older one and more alike to the picture in front of him of the same man shaving in front of a partially cracked mirror in a crappy little apartment. For the life of him, he can’t remember where the apartment was, or who the man seemed to be smiling at in the memory, but what he does understand is that the man in the picture is in fact him, or who he was before Hydra.

          This is when he finally breaks off from the group to explore the exhibit himself. A lot of information about Steve, before and after the serum. There’s more in his head of a skinny Steve who couldn’t make it through the winter without at least one death scare, but a few scattered images of a broad shouldered man who he had followed everywhere because he knew deep down it was the same person he had grown up with. But when he turns to see another picture of the man, himself, in black and white, he freezes.

          James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, the wall reads. That’s me, he thinks absentmindedly before shaking his head at himself. That’s who I used to be, he corrects. Seeing the name brings up the issue of what he’s called now, which hurts his head more than the flashing colors, so he leaves it alone. While skimming over the information he’s given the answer to his most urgent problem; where to go.

          Steve Rogers and James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes were born and bred in Brooklyn, New York City and to his poor, messed up head, there’s nowhere else he can think of to go. Satisfied with the next step to his plan, he leaves the museum, not noticing before he goes the gaping, wide-eyed girl staring back and forth between him and the picture. His supplies are still there when he goes to recover them, but he didn’t think they wouldn’t be, and he rummages through the bag until he can manage to pull out enough money for a train ticket to New York. It’s then that he notices the sky is getting darker and he’s faced with a choice of leaving for New York tonight or staying for a little longer in DC.

          Suddenly he straightens up, standing in that alleyway and clutching a black backpack so tightly that his metal fingers are seconds from ripping right through it. This is the first choice he can remember having to himself, one he gets to make with no influence from other people. At first it’s frightening, being fully independent after being controlled for so long, and it freezes him in his spot, his blood running cold. But then the cold reminds him of cryo freeze and how being locked in that metal tube for years actually felt and he relishes in the choice. An ambulance rushes by, heading in the direction of the Triskelion, and he decides to leave tonight.

          He walks to the nearest train station and over to one of the machines that gives out tickets, but gets frustrated with it quickly. A vague memory of buying a train ticket to go down to some beach flashes in his head. He had dealt with a young woman who sold him the ticket, and he had made her blush by flirting with her. Twisting his head around to look for a teller, he finds one to his right and walks over to it, mentally trying to prepare himself for interaction.

          “Hello, sir, what can I do you for?” she asks, a sweet smile on her face and a dimple in her cheek. He takes a second too long to remember where he’s going, but out of either employee politeness or just plain kindness, she doesn’t acknowledge it.

          “I need a train ticket to Brooklyn, New York,” he says carefully, his voice scratchy since he hasn’t used it since this morning when he screamed at Steve. The girl nods, still smiling kindly.

          “And would you like a direct trip or a connecting one?” At his obviously lost look, she continues. “A connecting one would mean getting off your train and switching to another one in the middle of the trip.”

          “Oh, uh, the first one please.” He doesn’t want to add more hassle to his already complicated plans, but the new choice makes him feel a little better about the whole thing. Choices make him feel more in control about what’s happening to him, and control is exactly what he needs at the moment.

          “And how will you be paying for your ticket?” she asks as she turns to a screen and starts tapping at it.

          “Cash.” He tugs the bills out of his pocket and hands her the amount the screen says. As she sorts out his change and puts the money in the cash register, her eyes drift over to his left hand, which isn’t covered by the glove at the moment. He curls the metal fingers and pulls it closer to him, self-conscious about it. She reaches out, putting his change into his right hand. The coins plunk into his palm and he curls his fingers over them.

“Have a lovely day.” She smiles politely.

          “You too, Miss.” He may not be very good at social interaction, but he knows somewhere in the mess of memories that is his head that his mother raised him to be polite to dames. Or is it ladies now? Women? Anyway, she smiles wider at him, shifting from her courteous work smile to one of genuine affection.

          “You have a nice trip,” she says. He nods, attempts a smile back but ultimately fails, and walks towards the platform. As he takes a seat on a bench next to a sign advertising some local play, his mind drifts over to the next step in his plan. He’ll need to find an apartment, or some place to live, maybe even a job if he starts to run out of money. But he can’t really do anything about that until he gets there, and inevitably the other problem pops up in his head.

          What is he called now? Somewhere in his head he remembers being called Jimmy by, who he thought at the time, was the most beautiful woman in the world. The image he’s shown is of a plump middle-aged woman with dark brown hair that matches his own, a wide smile and a sharp wooden spoon she was always cooking something or hitting someone with. By how far he’s looking up at the woman in the picture, he assumes he was very young, but placing exactly where on his timeline is slightly difficult. The memories are all still there, he thinks, but everything’s so scattered he can hardly make sense of any of it.

          The next name he can place is The Winter Soldier, but that doesn’t seem right. He knows somehow that it was a moniker, like Captain America was for Steve, and it’s for the weapon Hydra used him as. Never was he called The Winter Soldier by his handlers, only The Asset, he recalls with mounting bitterness. Like he wasn’t a person, only an advantage Hydra had against S.H.I.E.L.D. He guesses he was, but he’s neither of those names now.

          Then the name Steve called him registers in his mind, Bucky. Flashes reappear in his eyes, shoving memories at him like someone overturned a box of photographs over his head and they’re all rushing at him at once. Many people; girls he’s kissed, soldiers he’s fought with, some little girls that look a lot like him, have all apparently called him Bucky. But the most common person, the one Bucky sees the most (muttering “Buck” at him like he’s annoyed but with a grin on his face; grinning with “Bucky” spilling from his lips; laughter followed by the name; staring down at him in a damp and dark room with worried eyes and a concerned voice) is Steve. All the Steve memories shine bright, ranging from a blinding gold to a pure, clear blue that radiates wholesomeness.

          Steve called him Bucky, that was the name he was known by, back before all of the bad stuff happened. He thinks that maybe he should go by Bucky once again, to try and help place more memories, remind him of who he used to be so he can strive for that again. He remembers the short clip at the museum of James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes laughing at something Steve said and Steve radiating sunshine as he smiled back at Bucky. That Bucky was good, was a whole person who could have Steve and almost deserved him. Maybe if he goes by “Bucky”, he’ll deserve Steve again.

           After everything he’s done, he doesn’t think or feel at all like the man in that video. He’s death and destruction, that man was smiles and protection. But maybe with a role model like his past self, he can become those things again, leave The Winter Soldier and the asset behind. Quietly, to himself, he thinks his new/old name, _Bucky_. He certainly doesn’t feel like a Bucky, but he figures he’ll get used to it.

          “I’m Bucky,” he says under his breath, the word sounding foreign on his tongue. He’ll get used to it, he insists. A train pulls into the station and Bucky checks it with the number on his ticket. It’s his train. He stands, taking swift strides towards the train doors, and waits as several people rush out of the train before stepping inside. There are two levels, so he has another choice, which makes a warm feeling start at the bottom of his stomach. Choices are quickly becoming his new favorite thing. He chooses the top one for a better vantage point in case of attack, and settles into a seat towards the back of the car.

          The train isn’t very busy, but he still spends a substantial amount of time examining each passenger for weapons and racking his messed up brain for any memories of their faces, just in case he can remember a Hydra operative. When that’s done, and he feels fairly certain that no one on this car is going to attempt to kill and/or capture him, he turns his attention back to his memories.

          Bucky has a lot of images floating around his brain, and he’s much too tired after the day he’s had to examine each and every one, so he decides, _chooses_ , to play a game of sorts. When an image that interests him flashes in his head, he’ll try to remember it fully and then place it on his timeline, which is the main problem he’s having with all of these memories.

          After sifting through memories he’s sure are either from his Winter Soldier days or even during WWII, he starts with an image of dark brown hair spilling across a back. In the image, himself and the girl in front of him are both sitting on a hardwood floor in a position he somehow categorizes as “criss-cross applesauce”. The little girl is giggling and squirming, and a childish version of his own voice tells her to “Quit movin’, Becca,” but doesn’t sound as annoyed as the words. Becca triggers another memory, one that explains to him that she is one of his younger sisters, Rebecca. Going back to the original memory, Bucky watches as small tan fingers deftly twist her hair in a perfect braid down the center of her back before tying it off at the bottom with a red ribbon.

          Then Rebecca turns around and plants a kiss on Bucky’s cheek, grinning at him with a gap in her smile. “Thank you Bucky,” she says cheerfully and Bucky wipes at his face, grumbling about how “I told ya not to do that no more” but still sounding cheerful. From what Bucky can guess, as a child he sounded happy; at least sometimes he was. The warm feeling in his stomach returns at the thought that maybe Bucky could be happy again one day. He places the memory around age five or six, in a Brooklyn apartment he shared with his Ma, Pa, Rebecca, and his soon-to-be-born little sister. He can’t remember the younger sister’s name, but still takes victory in remembering the other things.

          The next memory is of Steve, but Bucky can already tell that it isn’t as cheerful as the last memory. Steve is sitting on a counter next to a sink, face bloody and cut up, a bruise forming on his cheekbone as Bucky watches. The same tan hands, though now much bigger, reach up with a wet rag to wipe at the cuts as Bucky’s voice chastises Steve for getting into a fight. Though his voice is angry, his touch is soft, careful, like Bucky is scared of hurting Steve. Bucky has a guilty flash to this morning when he was the cause of Steve bleeding. How angry the old him would’ve been if he’d known.

          “I know Buck, but they were try’n’a take Little Susie’s chocolate bar, the one she saved for weeks to buy,” Steve is saying, looking so damn earnest that Bucky wants to simultaneously club him over the head and hug him close. Bucky keeps scolding him, but the blood’s gone so he can really see Steve’s face now, and Bucky somehow knows he’s never been able to stay mad at Steve, at least not when he’s basically drowning him with those baby blues.

          “Next time, call me, and let me take the beating,” Bucky says, squeezing out the blood from the rag. “Dames love a bad boy.” Steve grins, shoving at his shoulder, and the memory dissolves, leaving behind only a strange feeling of fond exasperation that must’ve been from when Bucky actually experienced it. He thinks that it’s from later on in his life, maybe when he and Steve had an apartment together. Wait, did they have an apartment together? Yeah, yeah Bucky thinks they did. So they would’ve been in their early twenties, before Bucky enlisted and after Steve’s ma died.

          Steve’s mother died? Oh, yeah, “the end of the line”, the words that got Bucky to remember. He had said them to Steve after Steve’s mom died to try and help, and Steve remembered it to help Bucky more than 70 years later. Everything is so confusing, nothing seems real, not truly, and it’s like Bucky can’t trust his own mind. It’s an incredibly frustrating feeling, but Bucky doesn’t dwell on it because lying under that frustration is fear that he might never be able to trust himself again.

          The train slows down as it gets to another stop, the loud clanks startling Bucky out of his reverie. When he settles down once again, after observing the new passengers and repeating his earlier process, Bucky tries to quiet his brain. The colors continue to flash, but he leans his head against the window and tries to focus on the shining gold ones and ignore the deep red that seems to seep through the other images despite how much he tries to contain it.

          It’s either really late at night or really early in the morning by the time Bucky arrives in New York City. He’s in the lower part of Manhattan, a place Bucky doesn’t think he ever really got to explore much back then as it was known for its snobby, rich inhabitants. Somehow his internal compass knows which way is south, so he follows random streets in that direction until he can see the Brooklyn Bridge. When he spots it for the first time in 70 years something loosens in his chest that he just barely keeps from calling the feeling of being home.

 

*~*~*

 

          Sunlight streams in through the partially open curtains, waking Bucky from a very restless sleep. Out of eight hours trying to get rest, he probably only ended up with a net total of one. The red memories he tries to avoid haunt him in his sleep when he’s not aware enough to push them away. He learns it wasn’t just red, but startling white he knows is bone, purple faces rimmed by silver as metal fingers curl around their throats, black guns and bronze bullets, sizzling electric blue from having his mind wiped over and over again. But the worst part, the worst color and feeling that wakes him up more than any of the others combined, is of a deep iron and a chilling cold that stays with Bucky even after his eyes open.

          It’s been a week of this, broken nights followed by days of flooding memories. Being back in Brooklyn has helped Bucky place many of his memories, letting him sort them so they’re in the right spots. He has a vague idea of who he used to be and it’s growing clearer with each day. The only problem is that even with this image of his former self, Bucky still doesn’t know if he can become that person again. He still doesn’t know if he wants to.

          Bucky sits up in his bed, quickly alert and ready for an attack. It takes a little less time than it did yesterday to remember he’s in a crappy but secure motel in Brooklyn. Running a hand through his long hair, he gets out of bed, another memory flashing at him of how he used to do that when he had much shorter hair and how the girls would swoon. After five days of virtually drowning in the sudden onslaught of memories, yesterday was strangely blank.

          A scared voice in the back of his head wonders if maybe he’s run out of connections, but he shuts it up with a scalding shower. On the first day, he tried getting in before the water had warmed up and ended up having a panic attack that smashed the bathroom mirror. He had to pay more for that. After his shower, he dries off and tugs on his clothes for the day. It’s the same as yesterday because all of the shirts are identical and the one other pair of pants he has needs to be washed.

          Bucky leaves the motel room the same way he has for the past six days; cap tugged down, collar pulled up, and left hand gloved. From the motel he walks down to a bagel shop a few blocks away and buys a sesame seed bagel and an iced tea. He’s been changing it up every day; first day he got a poppy seed and a coffee (four sugars), the next a plain with orange juice. Choices still give him a nice feeling and starting off his day with them helps him deal with the rest of the usually tiring day.

          He leaves a good tip for the sweet old Pakistani man who owns the place, since he never questions Bucky when he takes a little too long to order. Today when he leaves the shop he turns left instead of right to go further into Brooklyn. Some sort of instinct in Bucky knows he used to live there, even though the buildings are mostly very different from what he can remember.

          A barbershop on the corner is familiar; Bucky can remember saving up for months to get a haircut, can remember who he now identifies to be his mother pulling cash out of a tin can and herding him towards the shop when his bangs would reach past his eyes. The images are so nice Bucky considers going in himself, but then he remembers the barber’s chair and how it would probably end with him having a panic attack and breaking something and he decides against it.

          A drycleaner’s replaced an ice cream shack that Bucky used to spend his meager allowance at every weekend, but then it was every two weekends so both he and Steve could have some. Another image is of a pretty girl Bucky had taken out to the place. He can remember getting up the girl’s sweater but not her name, but Bucky doubts he knew her name back when the date happened. Apparently Bucky was a player, but he could never stay with a girl longer than two weeks. Whenever Bucky tries to remember why, he’s blinded by gold and chooses to leave it for another time.

          Bucky walks around for a while, trying to remember more things he hasn’t already figured out, and he gets a few glimpses, but it’s mostly just the same things. A week in and he’s already run out. Bucky doesn’t know if he should be grateful or annoyed, so he settles for just trying to sort through the endless torrent of memories before looking for more. The sun is directly above his head when Bucky’s stomach rumbles, a pleasant feeling for him because it means a new choice.

          Breakfast is always at the bagel shop, because there are enough choices for him there, but lunch varies from place to place. Two of the six places he’s gone to were there when Bucky was still living in Brooklyn, but the rest of them just looked appealing enough for him to wander in and order. Dinner usually consists of vending machine snacks because after 70 odd years of not really eating, he can’t handle too much food. Today Bucky chooses an old looking diner that states it was opened in the 50’s.

          The waitress lets him choose his own table, so he takes a booth in the very back, facing towards the exit. Some things are engrained in him from being The Winter Soldier, he’s learned, and one of them is never having his back to the entrance. The waitress- a short, slightly chubby girl in her early twenties- tells him to hold tight and that she’ll be right back with a menu. She’s attractive, Bucky is surprised he notes, someone his old self would’ve probably flirted with. When she returns, she slides a plastic covered menu in front of him, one that’s very colorful and covered in pictures of appetite inducing food.

          “Alrighty, here’s your menu and I’ll take your drink order. What’ll you have?” She grins at him with her hands on her hips and for a second he’s distracted by her curves.

          “Whaddya got?” Bucky asks in an old accent that still feels like the right way to talk despite its disuse. The waitress brightens at his chipper tone and begins to list drinks, counting them off on her fingers.

          “We’ve got Coke, Sprite, iced tea, coffee, Dr. Pepper.” Bucky doesn’t know who “Dr. Pepper” is or why he used his degree to make a drink, but an old fashioned Coca-Cola sounds good to him and he tells her as much. “I’ll be right back with it.”

          As she walks away, Bucky feels extremely proud of himself for getting through a social interaction successfully, but then his eyes catch on his gloved hand and the sense of panic returns to him. Psychological issues aren’t like cuts that heal in a few days, he reminds himself, even though he still feels frustratingly broken at not being able to celebrate a small victory.

          He diverts his attention to the menu and after looking for a couple minutes he decides on a classic cheeseburger to go with his Coca-Cola. A picture comes to him of a grinning Steve biting into a burger bigger than him, ketchup dripping down his chin but a light in his eyes Bucky strived to get with everything he did. Eating out was a privilege they didn’t get very often, so it must’ve been a special occasion. Bucky tries to remember what one but comes up blank and contents himself with just the memory of Steve half-heartedly slapping his hand away when he tried to steal one of Steve’s fries.

          The waitress comes back and Bucky gives her his order, a little bitter about his earlier setback but still being polite. While he waits for his food he slips from subject to subject, thinking only to himself in a way that should be unhealthy but isn’t for him because he’s finally allowed to think. As his food arrives he’s toying with the idea of maybe seeing a therapist but tables the thought for after he’s finished the delicious looking burger in front of him. He’s halfway into his meal when the little bell of the front door rings, signaling to new customers. Bucky looks up from under his hat and freezes.

          Standing in the doorway, smiling politely at the waiter guiding him to his seat, is Steve Rogers with Sam Wilson by his side. Bucky feels caged for all of three seconds before he realizes they haven’t noticed him yet. They’re seated in a weird spot, the wall between the restaurant and the kitchen blocking them from view, so Bucky can’t see them and they can’t see him, but he can hear them due to his carefully trained ears.

          “-sure you want to move so far away?” Wilson asks as a menu is set on the table.

          “Yes-” Steve pauses to say thank you to the waiter- “I’m sure. S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone, so I have no reason to stay there, and your house is nice, don’t get me wrong, but it’ll be nice to move home again.” They give their drink orders to the waitress before continuing their conversation.

          “What kept you from doing this after the whole Battle of New York thing?” Wilson asks. Bucky makes a side note to run a background check on Sam Wilson. Maybe he can go to that Apple store about twelve blocks over, use their laptops. Apparently The Winter Soldier was trained in more than just combat so he could recover information when needed. After thinking through all this, Bucky realizes Steve still hasn’t answered.

          Steve sighs heavily before saying, “After the battle, I came down to Brooklyn to see how things changed, see if I could remember anything. It was nice at first, but then everything I could remember was about Bucky and it just hurt too much. But now…” he trails off, the conversation pausing yet again when the waiter returns. The pair gives their orders to him, a turkey wrap for Wilson and BLT for Steve.

          “Now that your boy’s alive, you’re hoping he’ll come home,” Wilson finishes for Steve, sounding like an all-knowing God to Bucky’s ears.

          “I don’t know how much he remembers. If a part of him thinks of Brooklyn, I want to be here when he comes.” Bucky silently criticizes himself for being so predictable. A coincidence like this is too easy. How Steve and Wilson walked into the same diner as Bucky at the same time he doesn’t know, but if they could find him this easily, what about the Hydra operatives who are most certainly looking for their most valuable asset?

          “Would you like dessert, sir?” Bucky is startled out of his thoughts by the waitress coming back. He thinks about it for a second; he was looking at the cherry pie on display a couple feet away. Something about the red glaze brought up the first memories of that color that didn’t hurt to think of. But he can’t risk being found out for a pie, so he shakes his head. “Alright, I’ll go get your check for you.” She walks away, leaving Bucky’s ears to listen once again to Steve’s conversation.

          “-in Europe, maybe. Going after the people who hurt him,” Wilson is saying.

          “How would he even get out of the country without a passport?” Steve asks.

          “He’s one of the most dangerous assassins in the world; I think he’d figure it out.” Wilson has a sense of humor, Bucky notes. That’s good; Steve needs laughter in his life. The one bad thing Bucky remembers about Steve is that he doesn’t look as happy as he used to. The waitress comes back, check in hand, and Bucky pulls out enough money to cover the bill and some for tip. Going to the front counter to pay will reveal his location, so he throws the money down onto the table and stands quietly, as not to draw attention to himself.

          The bathroom in the back is fairly clean with a nice sized window about a foot above Bucky’s head. Hopping onto the sink, Bucky pries open the window and wiggles his way out, dropping onto the pavement of the back alley with a light thud. For a second, he thinks about running off, going to the motel, grabbing his things, and fleeing. But the curiosity is too strong; Bucky needs to see Steve, at least one more time. He waits in the alley for the pair to finish their meals before trailing them as they walk further into Brooklyn.

          “So where are we starting?” Wilson asks as they turn another corner.

          “Europe,” Steve replies. “A lot of Hydra bases are there, and Bucky might try to either take them out or tie up loose ends. That’s our best bet. Nat says she’ll call if she gets any Intel, but she can’t help that much. She’s busy at the moment.” Good, Bucky thinks. With Steve in another country for a while, Bucky can try and piece together the remnants of himself and go back to Steve when he’s ready. But he can’t stay in Brooklyn; it’s too predictable. After tonight, he’ll leave, find somewhere else to take up residence for a while. It’ll be good for him, he hopes.

          Steve and Wilson go into a somewhat-fancy hotel just six blocks from Bucky’s motel. There really isn’t sufficient security for someone like Captain America, but Steve’s always been a reckless little punk. Huh. Where’d that come from? It’s about three in the afternoon now, so Bucky retreats to the motel to pack up his things. After doing a load of wash and deciding on which train he’s going to take, he eats two granola bars and heads out around 1:00. Latest train leaves around 2 in the morning, which gives him just enough time to visit Steve and get to the station.

          Bucky scales the side of the building, having noted earlier that the floor Steve is on isn’t high enough to warrant sealed windows, and slips into Steve’s room almost silently. He takes a few quiet steps towards the bed Steve’s sleeping in and pauses. Steve looks… peaceful, almost. There’s a small furrow to his eyebrows, hardly noticeable really, but other than that he’s completely relaxed. A few memories pop up at the picture Steve makes, but Bucky shoves them down so he can enjoy the moment now instead.

          In the darkness, he can’t see much except outlines. The soft curve of Steve’s nose, the sharp cut of his jaw, the steady rise and fall of his defined stomach as he breathes. Bucky chances a step closer to see the details better, and is rewarded with the picture of Steve’s long lashes pillowed on his smooth, pink cheeks. His lips are a rosy sort of color, parted slightly to let out puffs of air, the bottom one curved prettily. For some reason, seeing Steve up close again makes him feel better, like what he imagines coming home feels like.

          A red light from the clock on the dresser tells Bucky it’s time to go. With a last, lingering look that Bucky doesn’t really understand, he slips out the window and into the night.

         

*~*~*

 

          Bucky slowly blinks himself awake, freaks out when he doesn’t know where he is, and pulls a knife on the train seat next to him. Luckily, he’s alone in the car, it being so early and all, and can calm down without anyone seeing him. He slips the knife back in its sheath and stands, looking around. There are a lot of trees around him, going by too fast to distinguish much besides green, with a few houses interspersed between.

          The red pixelated lettering above the doorway tells Bucky that his next stop is Oyster Bay. He knows he’s on Long Island somewhere, probably the north shore, and that the suburbs are the perfect place to lay low for a while. No one will look for a deadly assassin in a cute, laid back town like this. When the train slows to a stop, Bucky hops off and finds himself in a station just half a mile from the water. He’s guessing that it’s the bay the town was named after. The beach brings back half formed memories that he’s too tired to sift through now, but he recognizes one as a beach in France before he tamps it down.

          Tugging his pack further up on his shoulder, he walks down the steps into a parking lot, following the cars until he makes it to a street. Opposite him is a big field, part of it for baseball and the other part for football. Continuing down the road, he finds houses, and further down some businesses. He doesn’t take time to figure out what they are and instead his eyes latch onto an “Apartment to Rent” sign in front of a building that’s a few stories high. Finding a place to stay was Bucky’s number one priority.

          He makes his way towards the building, closer to the sign, and finds the door locked. That’s a plus, he notes; good security. There’s a phone number on the sign, so Bucky takes out the pen and pad he stole from the motel and writes it down. He doesn’t have a cell phone, but he knows he saw a payphone down a ways, so he continues on his walk until he reaches it. Then he realizes it’s about 4 o’clock in the morning and waking up his maybe-soon-to-be landlord might not be a great idea.

          There don’t seem to be any bagel shops in the immediate vicinity, so Bucky takes a seat in a diner on the corner, across from the building he hopes to live in soon. A hungover looking kid who definitely isn’t old enough to drink shoots up from where he was lying on the counter when the door opens, and only looks mildly annoyed at Bucky’s presence. Bucky decides to give him a tip for that.

          “Our specials this morning are the 3 Little Piggies platter and the Cheesy Deluxe omelet.” The kid says, stumbling over with a menu. “What can I get you to drink?”

          “Orange juice,” Bucky takes the menu and begins to look through it. An omelet sounds good, but not the deluxe special one. When the kid comes back, Bucky gives him his order and plays with the straw wrapper to occupy himself while he thinks. He wants to be able to track Steve while he’s looking for Bucky, and he somehow knows that he’ll be able to do it if he only has a laptop, so he puts money away for that expense in his mind. Adding rent, which he’s estimating at, he’ll be able to survive for at least five months with the money he has.

          That means he has a little time to learn how to socialize like a normal person before he has to get a job.

          It’s a little daunting to think about, so Bucky switches back to something that mostly seems to calm him down; placing memories. The first thing that pops up in his mind is alcohol, seeing as his waiter is apparently an underage drinker. The memory that accompanies that thought is of himself, 16 years old, and Steve, 15, drinking Gordon’s Distilled Gin that someone had shoved in Bucky’s hands with only a “Down with prohibition!” before he ran off. Bucky was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he found Steve and they tried alcohol for the first time. The word prohibition helps Bucky place it better, since for some reason the fact that prohibition was repealed in 1933 is in his head.

          Another memory follows, and with the feeling Bucky gets he knows it isn’t good. He’s in a bar, not very well-kept but he’s wearing a uniform and as a soldier he knows he took what he could get. People are dancing around him, a guy with a mustache Bucky places as Dum Dum making time with a dame whose orange curls bounce with each step she takes. A hard, rough accent hits his ears, telling him he’s in England somewhere, probably during the Howling Commando portion of his career.

          The only thing that registers beyond what he can see is a panicky feeling clawing at his chest, curling around his throat and making his blood run cold. It’s consuming him, every thought paranoid about something Bucky doesn’t know of, a crippling fear that is from-from. Bucky can’t place it; what made his past self so scared? Someone sits down next to him, in the memory, and when Bucky turns to look at who it is, it’s Steve. Big Steve, though, not the skinny guy Bucky has been getting used to accompanying him in these memories.

          “Hey, Buck, everything okay?” Steve asks, a small smile on his face trying to hide the worry in his eyes. Steve couldn’t con someone if his life depended on it, Bucky knows that, too honest for it. Even if he could lie, he would never be able to lie to Bucky.

          “Course it is,” Bucky can remember forcing himself to put that half-grin half-smirk on his face that went perfectly with his signature sarcasm. “Not like we’re in the middle of a warzone or nothing.” Steve doesn’t sigh or roll his eyes at Bucky’s dry humor like he usually does; instead he gives Bucky a hard look.

          “I mean it. You’ve been pretty worn out lately. If it’s too much, you know I wouldn’t hold it against you.” He looks so sincere, and Bucky now thinks it’s a sweet look on Steve, but Bucky then was just cursing himself for being too obvious.

          “I’m not wimping out on you, Stevie, you know me.” Bucky knocks his shoulder against Steve’s. “Now, lighten up. Go have a drink or something.”

          “You know I can’t get drunk.” Steve says, looking a little less worried, a twitch to his lips that lets Bucky know he’s fooled him for now.

          “Then dance with a dame, plenty of ‘em making eyes at you.” Steve flushes at that, and a part of Bucky stops freezing so cold at the pretty pink color. “I’m gonna go have a smoke.”

          “Don’t freeze,” Steve tells him, and Bucky doesn’t say that he already feels like he is. He doesn’t have to leave the bar to smoke, plenty of other people are smoking already inside, but it’s an old habit that just stuck from back when the smoke made Steve cough up a lung. He strikes a match, hard to come by in a warzone, and lights up a cigarette, which are even harder to come by.

          It’s only then does Bucky remember what was crippling him with fear; Bucky couldn’t get drunk anymore. Whatever Zola did to him was scarily similar to what happened to Steve, and from what Steve’s told him about the serum, Bucky was _not_ the kind of person who would do well with it.

          Bucky is brought back into present day when the waiter brings over his omelet.

          “Thanks,” he says gruffly, trying to sound polite but ultimately failing. He’s really going to have to work on this interacting thing. The waiter doesn’t seem to care and contents himself with resting his head against the counter, probably relishing in the cold surface. Bucky takes pity on him. “You can sleep; I’ll wake you up when I need the check.” The waiter narrows his eyes.

          “You’re probably gonna rob me, but you know what? I don’t care.” And he promptly shuts his eyes, falling asleep in a few short minutes. Bucky turns to his breakfast, deliberately taking his time to eat so he can draw this out longer. This time he ignores his memories, the last one too chilling to delve any deeper for a while. As a sniper, waiting for long periods of time with nothing to do is a common occurrence, so he’s good at blanking his mind, able to just enjoy the food and think of nothing.

          He makes it an hour and a half before he feels he’s overstaying his welcome. Then he pushes himself to stay another half hour, uncomfortable the entire time, before standing up and walking over to the counter. He raps his knuckles against it in a short little rhythm that wakes up the waiter. The kid shoots up, blinking deliriously before focusing on Bucky.

          “Huh.” He huffs, like he’s surprised. “You didn’t rob me.”

          “Too easy.” Bucky replies gruffly, not quite able to infuse enough of a teasing tone to it. The kid just grins weirdly anyway. Bucky notes that the kid’s kind of goofy looking, hasn’t grown into himself yet with long limbs and messy black hair he really should try to tame. It would be endearing if Bucky had enough of a control on his emotions to realize that was what he was feeling.

          “Well, alright then.” The kid straightens up. “$10.53 is your total.” Bucky digs around in his pocket, pulling out 20 bucks and tossing it to the kid. The kid gapes at it. “That’s like, a 100% tip.”

          “Here’s another one; don’t drink the night before a 4 in the morning shift.” Then he turns and leaves the store, fixing his backpack straps and shoving his hands in his pockets. He walks around the park next to the bay for a while to use up some more time, and when he walks by the big clock in the center of town and it says 8:36 he decides he can call. Bucky makes his way back to the payphone from earlier and punches in the numbers.

          “ _Tilly Turner, what can I do for you?_ ” A crackly voice comes over the line. She sounds nice, or chipper at least.

          “Uh, hi, I’d like to rent your apartment in Oyster Bay.” There’s a pause.

          “ _Oh! Yes, yeah, great. We’d need to talk rent, and I’d have to show you the place, of course. When would you like to meet?_ ” There are some scribbling noises as Tilly presumably writes down the current information.

          “Today would be great.” Another pause, longer this time.

          “ _Alllright,_ ” she drags out the word. “ _I can be there in half an hour, if you’re ready._ ”

          “Okay. Meet you out front.” He waits for her confirmation before hanging up, and it’s only after the call ends that Bucky realizes making a meeting this quickly might be a bit strange. Well, she agreed, so he doesn’t dwell on it. Instead of waiting out front, Bucky waits in the gazebo sort-of-across-the-street from the apartment building, just in case this is an ambush. The gazebo is more public and has more escape routes if needed.

          Fortunately, when a silver Toyota pulls into one of the parking spots in front of the building, the woman the gets out is devoid of any weapons and Bucky doesn’t recognize her as a Hydra operative. He hops off the ledge of the gazebo and walks over, more details coming into focus as he gets closer. She’s pretty, with brown hair, some dyed highlights of blonde, a nice face, if maybe a slightly imposing nose, and wearing a fairly expensive looking green blouse and some black pants. Her bracelets are fake gold, though, and the one ring she’s wearing looks to be for sentimental reasons and not to look well-off.

          “Hello,” he says when he’s within earshot. The woman, Tilly, jumps at the surprise and turns to smile at him politely, only pausing a little at his appearance. He didn’t get a chance to shave this morning, so he has some stubble, and he knows his resting facial expression hovers between slightly murderous and extremely murderous.

          “Uh, hi, Tilly Turner.” She holds out a hand. Bucky takes it, attempting a weak smile, succeeding more than he has before.

          “Bucky Barnes.” Her eyebrows go up.

          “Seriously?” He nods and she laughs a little. “I’ve never met another person with alliteration before.” Ha, that is kind of funny, Bucky thinks to himself.

          “Actually, Bucky’s a nickname. I’m really a James.” Tilly shrugs.

          “I’m actually a Natalie.” She says it like it’s a secret just for them, which makes Bucky begin to like her a little more. “Well, Mr. Barnes, let’s go up.” Tilly pushes a key in the door, turns it, and walks in, holding the door open for Bucky. When she takes a step towards the elevator, saying “The apartment’s on the 3rd floor,” he pauses.

          “Could we take the stairs?” Bucky knows he won’t do very well trapped in a metal room with a stranger. Tilly pauses for a second, but nods.

          “My sister hates elevators too; got stuck in one on a school trip once ‘cause some idiots decided to jump,” Tilly says, leading Bucky to the staircase and heading up. “A girl passed out from heatstroke. Everyone freaked out.”

          “I’ve never been very good with them.” Bucky makes himself say, trying to ignore the flash of a memory that tells him he once killed someone in an elevator. It’s too strong, though, and he distinctly remembers the silver of his knife cutting into a throat, the smell of copper as the blood spilled over his fingers, and how his handlers didn’t even hose him down until he gave a full mission report. He sat in a torture chair, talked about how he killed a 23 year old man, all with blood stuck in the metal plating of his left hand, the right one making horrible squishing sounds as it fumbled with the excess.

          “Mr. Barnes?” Tilly is asking, a concerned look on her face.

          “Sorry.” Bucky shakes his head. “Just thinking.” She nods, continuing down the hallway. “And Bucky’s fine.”

          “Well, Bucky.” Tilly turns, opening a door numbered 3C. “This apartment is the last one on the floor, which also happens to be the last floor. It’s furnished, but the furniture is kind of old, so I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to change it.” They enter the apartment. “One bedroom, one bath, a small kitchen but all the appliances are in good condition, with a living room that fits a couch and a chair comfortably.”

          Bucky makes his way around the apartment. The living room has a tan three seater couch, a mismatched purple armchair next to it, a beat up coffee table, and a nice sized television. The kitchen is a box, at best, but has a lot of surface space, a microwave, stove, fridge, and toaster oven. There appear to be some pots and pans, so it’s not completely bare. The bedroom fits a dresser and a twin bed, but that’s pretty much it, and the bathroom’s got cracked tiling but a clean looking shower/tub combination. There aren’t many windows, which he likes; not many shots a sniper can get from minimal windows. When he returns to the living room, Tilly’s standing there, biting at her thumb nail.

          “How’d you like it?” she asks, sounding nervous. Bucky thinks back to the “Apartment for Rent” sign; it was kind of worse for wear, so it’s been up for a while. Maybe Tilly’s been nervous she won’t be able to rent the apartment. She’s pretty young for a landlord, so Bucky’s guessing she either inherited the building or is rich, and judging by her jewelry it’s not the latter.

          “It’s good. How much would rent be?” he asks. Tilly lets out a sigh that sounds suspiciously like relief.

          “The last inhabitant paid 600 a month.” she says. Bucky nods; that was better than what he was expecting.

          “I’ll take it.” Tilly grins widely, clapping her hands together.

          “That’s awesome!” She turns, rummaging through her bag. “I’ll need your number so we can get together and sign the papers.” Bucky stops.

          “Um, I can’t move in today?” Tilly frowns, looking up at him in confusion. Then her eyes drag over his backpack, his unkempt appearance, and she frowns harder.

          “Bucky, do you have somewhere to stay tonight?” Bucky thinks about lying, saying he’s got a motel room that he can book, but ultimately just shakes his head, deciding it’s not worth it. Tilly bites her lip, thinking for a moment, before rummaging in her purse once again. “Here,” she shoves a key at him. “I’ll come back with the papers tomorrow to sign, but you sleep here tonight.”

          “Oh, um, thank you.” Bucky stares at the key. It’s a simple silver one with a little covering that’s in the shape of a taco with a little face and mustache. He looks back at Tilly. “Thank you,” he says again, not knowing how to put what he’s feeling into words. Tilly just smiles.

          “No problem.” She turns to go.

          “Um,” she pauses, looking back. “I don’t have a phone number. Or a phone.” Tilly drops her head to the side, sighing.

          “Oh, sweetie.” But she looks more amused than anything else. “Sleep tight.”

          As she walks out the door, Bucky thinks that he could like it here in Oyster Bay.

 

*~*~*

 

          _He knew he’d never go home again, when he said that line about following that little guy from Brooklyn back into the war. He knew it deep in his bones like he knew Steve was going to end up with Peggy Carter, the only woman Bucky had ever seen who deserved Steve. Like he knew that every Monday like clockwork he’d get a letter from Ma that was mostly in Becca’s handwriting. Like he knew that Dugan cheated at cards. Bucky knew he wasn’t going back home._

_Every day he pushed the thought aside, fought with the Howling Commandos, kept Steve from getting his stupid ass killed. But at night, when the cold crept into his sleeping bag and there was nothing to focus on to block out his thoughts, he knew he’d never see the Brooklyn Bridge again, never taste his Ma’s cooking again, never feel Rosie’s sticky fingers try to hold his hand again, never get to watch Steve have a nice life with Peggy._

_Somehow the asset knows this information about this Bucky person, knows that Bucky didn’t care if he got home again as long as Steve did. Somehow the asset knows this but who is Bucky? A mission? A handler? Who is this Bucky person whose thoughts have invaded the asset? The asset sits in a black chair that can rip out the asset’s head and put in a new one in less than a minute. A man sits next to the asset, working on the asset’s attached weapon, but where is Bucky? More importantly, where is Steve?_

_“Where’s Steve?” Bucky asks. No, the asset asks. No, Bucky. What?_

_“Sir?” The man next to the asset turns to the man in charge. The man in charge looks nice but isn’t, and the asset wishes the man wouldn’t smile so wide when the asset tells him a mission was successful. But the asset doesn’t wish. What’s happening?_

_“What?” the man in charge spits, looking displeased. The asset tenses, knowing what displeasure means._

_“He-he asked a question,” the man next to the asset says. The man in charge looks surprised, then frowns deeply, walking over to the chair._

_“Repeat the last sentence,” the man in charge demands. The asset wants to answer, but Bucky needs to know where Steve is and the man in charge won’t know. The asset turns towards the young man in the back, the one who fidgeted when he walked in and hasn’t been able to look at the asset since then._

_“Where’d Steve go?” the asset asks the man. The man’s head snaps up, eyes wide and caged looking, like the asset’s missions usually look when they know what’s going to happen. “Where’s Stevie?” the Bucky-asset, no Bucky repeats._

_“I-I don’t know,” the young man says, looking frightened by Bucky’s attention. Bucky remembers the man in charge calling him Rumlow._

_“Where’s Steve, Rumlow? Please tell me.” Rumlow looks even worse after Bucky uses his name, and the man in charge looks furious._

_“He’s remembering. Wipe him,” the man grunts angrily. “Then put him back in cryo.” The man in charge walks away, Rumlow following him, and Bucky thrashes in the chair._

_“No! Steve, what did you do with Steve!” Bucky struggles so much it takes seven men to get him back into his restraints and the last word he yells before it’s just blinding white pain is-_

“Steve!” Bucky shoots straight up in his bed, breathing hard and gun already cocked in his hands. It’s pointed at the dresser across from the bed, and even though the rest of Bucky’s body is shaking, his hands are steady. As he begins to realize where he is, who he is, and what’s going on, he lowers the gun and puts the safety back on. After tucking it back under his pillow, he drags a hand down his face, stubble rubbing at his palm, and rises from the bed. It’s still dark outside, around 3 in the morning, too early to go to the diner for breakfast, but he’s not going back to sleep now. There’s a coffee machine in the kitchen that Tilly bought him as a welcoming present, but Bucky thinks it’s just because she feels bad for him.

          Either way, he gets coffee, and though the caffeine doesn’t really work on him with his enhancements, he likes the taste a lot. Especially when he gets flashes of a bitter, brown taste that he knows was the coffee they had back during the war. He dumps in a ton of sugar, because he has a sweet tooth and it’s the one thing he allows himself to indulge.  From shared chocolate bars that were so, so precious during a war, to penny candy Bucky would waste his allowance on, to just plain sugar, Bucky has many memories about sweets.

          He takes his mug- a white one that, when used, makes it look like he’s got cat whiskers- over to the couch and turns on the television. He has absolutely no idea how he has cable when he doesn’t pay for it, and he’s slightly worried that the last renter was stealing it from 3B and never fixed it, but he gets something to entertain himself with when he’s bored besides the very few books he has on the shelf, also left by previous inhabitants, so Bucky tries not to question it.

          That reminds him of his plans for the day; he was going down to the library to catch up on 70 years of missed literature. It doesn’t open for a while, so Bucky will have to wait, but he is extremely excited. He knows that if Steve were here, he’d call Bucky a nerd, but he really does love to read. The few books that are on the shelf (his favorite of them books about a wizard boy named Harry but there are only three of them on the shelf and apparently not in the correct order) were enough to remind him of his interest.

          He watches early morning talk shows about summer popsicle recipes and the best places to go for vacation this July. Bucky’s pretty sure it isn’t even June yet, so he doesn’t know why they’re preparing so early, but maybe some people just like to have things done early. Something big happens in July, Bucky’s sure of it, a big day, but he’s not exactly sure what or for who. Is it a holiday? A day of remembrance? Maybe it’s the day of a mission. But missions were never this important, not enough to remember as such a big thing.

          Bucky shakes his head, pushing it aside for now. It’s been long enough for the diner to open and the waiter there to have had a long enough nap to be able to socialize at half capacity. He gets dressed, the same combination of a black t-shirt, a ratty old jacket, and cargo pants that don’t show the weapons on him, and leaves the apartment building. It’s a short walk to the diner, go straight across the street, make a right, and it’s there on the corner. When Bucky walks in, Noah, the waiter, shoots up from his slumped position on the counter.

          “Hey man,” Noah greets him with a half-grin that he thinks makes him look boyishly charming. In reality it makes him look like a goofy high school student who sneezed and got his face stuck that way, but Bucky lets him live his fantasy.

          “Hello.” Bucky walks over to the two person table on the far wall, the seat he’s taken for the past couple of days because it has the best vantage point, and accepts a menu from Noah, who stumbles his way over. Noah isn’t very light on his feet.

          “What’ll you have today?” Noah asks, attempting a polite work smile but the weariness around his eyes giving him away. He’s very tired, which doesn’t help his clumsiness problem, but he also doesn’t smell vaguely of puke and a weird kind of alcohol, so Bucky decides to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume Noah was up all night studying.

          “Raspberry smoothie,” Bucky tells him before turning back to the menu. Noah goes back into the kitchen and returns with the drink. Whoever is back there must be fast if they can make such a complex smoothie (there are _so_ many ingredients) in less than two minutes. That’s assuming of course that it wasn’t Noah, but Bucky doesn’t think Noah could possibly manage it without spilling at least a little on himself, and his uniform is perfectly clean. Surprisingly, though, when Noah plops the smoothie down in front of Bucky he also plants himself in the chair on the other side of the table. Bucky doesn’t look up or acknowledge him in any way in the hopes that Noah will eventually just go away.

          “So, are you new in town?” Bucky isn’t so fortunate.

          “I’m trying to read the menu.” If he’s gruff and impolite, maybe then Noah will go away.

          “Dude, you’ve read that thing for at least ten minutes a day for like a week now; you probably have it memorized.” Bucky raises his eyebrows at the “dude”. Does he look like the type of person who would appreciate being referred to as “dude”? Bucky really doesn’t think he is. Maybe if Noah knew how many deadly weapons Bucky has on him in this moment (4 knives and 1 gun; he’s getting better. Sort of) he wouldn’t be so eager to chat. No Bucky, he scolds himself; no threatening non-Hydra operatives.

          “I do.” Truth is, he had it memorized after the third day, but he keeps that information to himself.

          “So then we can talk.” That weariness has disappeared, leaving behind only an annoying perkiness that frustratingly suits Noah much better.

          “No.” Noah pouts, a put upon pout that makes him look ridiculous. Bucky wants to snap at him that antagonizing the most dangerous assassin on Earth really isn’t a good idea, but contains himself long enough to say, “Eggs benedict with white toast and home fries, please.”

          “You’re no fun,” Noah grumbles, taking the menu back with an excessive amount of force. Bucky decides to ignore the very poor display of proper waiter behavior and nod at the compliment.

          “Thanks.” Noah huffs angrily, stomping off to the kitchen. Bucky feels weirdly proud of himself. Of course, then Noah comes back after giving to chef the order and sits right back down. “Why do you insist on talking to me?”

          “You look lonely eating all by yourself, man. Just trying to welcome you to the neighborhood.” Noah says, trying a polite smile once again, and once again failing. Bucky sighs inwardly, idly entertaining the idea of using his super murder glare on the kid, but ultimately deciding against it. Company might be nice, at least Noah could answer some questions for him.

          “Do you know the Harry Potter books?” Bucky asks. Noah blinks at him.

          “Uh, yeah, duh. Who doesn’t? They’re movies too, you know.” Bucky squints at that, searching the wreckage of his head for movies. They’re watched on televisions, he knows that, and they’re picture shows, at least that’s what he called them back in the 30s. They seemed to have advanced a lot since then, a store down the road advertised silver disks that were called DVDs that also claimed to be movies.

          “Oh,” Bucky says dumbly.

          “Did you live under a rock for the past twenty years? Harry Potter is the most popular name in the entire world,” Noah says. Bucky curls his gloved hand tightly, the light whirring of the gears ringing in his head.

          “I’ve been busy.” Noah looks confused for all of two seconds before nodding.

          “Alright. I’ll bring you the best movies of all time, just to catch you up,” he decides.

          “No, that’s okay-” Noah cuts him off.

          “Nah, it’ll be fun. I’ll get Trina to help me; she loves film.” Bucky decides it’s better not to ask who Trina is because it will only lead to more random talking. He has better questions to ask.

“Do you need to pay to get into the library?” Bucky asks. Noah shakes his head.

          “It’s like, ten bucks for a card I think, but they let you read for free. So, you are new to the town, then?” Noah asks, looking hopeful and ridiculous at the same time. Bucky doesn’t know why he wants to make conversation; Bucky knows he looks pretty intimidating and he should. Maybe Noah has no self-preservation instincts, kind of like Steve. It’s that thought that forces Bucky to indulge the kid for a while.

          “Yeah, I moved in a week ago.” Noah perks up.

          “Where were you before that?”

          “Brooklyn.” He was only there for a week, but not counting the 70 odd years of cryogenic sleep broken up with kill missions, he did live there before Oyster Bay.

          “My grandma’s from Brooklyn,” Noah says, perking up at the connection. “Why’d you leave?”

          “Had to.” Bucky doesn’t elaborate, too early to come up with a good lie, and Noah makes a sympathetic face.

          “Yeah, it’s expensive in the city.” Then he scrunches his face up. “Then again, it’s also pretty pricey here on the North Shore.” A little bell dings from the back and Noah almost falls out of his chair. “Your food’s ready,” he says with a sheepish grin before tripping into the kitchen. Bucky shakes his head at the kid. How did Bucky actually converse with someone this ridiculous without pulling a knife on him and/or bursting out laughing?

          Noah comes back with Bucky’s food and continues to talk for the duration of the meal. It’s mostly just Noah rambling on with a few of Bucky’s questions interspersed throughout, but it does feel good to actually talk with someone for a bit. After a while, though, Bucky begins to feel anxious, so he pays for the food and leaves a nice tip before walking down to the library. He passes an ice cream place on the way and decides to reward himself after the library for actually having a conversation with another person.

          When he gets to the library the first thing he feels (he’s trying make a habit of identifying his feelings when he has them) is overwhelmed. There are so many sections, three floors of books; fiction books, non-fiction books, picture books, biographies, autobiographies, magazines, audio books, any kind of book he can think of is there. Not to mention the different branches of fiction which make Bucky just want to shut down his brain for a while. The Dewey Decimal system is easy to follow, though, and he decides to begin with Harry Potter since he’s already started that series.

          He finds out he skipped book two accidentally, since the books in his apartment were 1, 3, and 4, so he picks up Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, finds a comfy armchair in the very back of the second floor, and curls up with his book for a while. People walk by, not many since this part of the library houses the old, unread books and few people really want to read about the life of George Wallace. Faintly, Bucky can hear shrieks of joy mixed with snotty crying coming from the kid’s section, which somewhat reminds him of his little sisters and he takes a small break from reading to try and remember them.

          There was Becca, given named Rebecca but no one ever called her that, who was 3 years younger than Bucky. She always wore her hair up, he remembers, with a red ribbon, always red, keeping it together. She would join Bucky on the fire escape when he smoked, lean her head on his shoulder and bum a cigarette off him, and they’d sit and make up stories about who they wanted to be and where they wanted to go. Bucky always liked Rebecca, even when she’d tag along with him and Steve and never stop asking questions. She understood him in a way only siblings could.

          The next one was Jeneviève with a “J” that she always said made her special, even if no one called her by her real name. She was always Jenny Barnes, the full name. Bucky would be walking down the hall at school and hear “Did you hear about Jenny Barnes? She wore a skirt that ended above her knees!” or something to that caliber. Jenny was a whole 6 years younger than Bucky and was a whirlwind of a girl. She’d wear red, red lipstick and high, high skirts, tease all the guys in town and never let them near her. She was a feminist, she always would brag, and a flapper, which she’d keep quieter about. Jenny Barnes was a rocket and Bucky finds himself wondering what she ended up doing with her life. Something important, he thinks.

          Last was little Rosie, Rosemary Barnes. She was a sweetie, he remembers. Born when Bucky was 8 years old with curly brown hair and big blue eyes. If the first two Barnes girls were red, with their ribbons and lipstick, Rosie was blue. A light, baby blue that never left her person. Either her socks or her bows or her dress, something on her was a sweet baby blue no matter what. She used to get into the sugar bowl, have sticky fingers no matter what, and adored Steve with her whole heart. Bucky always loved her for that.

          With a vague idea of maybe finding out what happened to his younger sisters, Bucky delves back into the book. Hours later, he’s found by an old man with gray hair and a kind smile that accompanies wise eyes. He’s got a slow kind of walk that comes from the fragility of old age, but when he grins at Bucky any semblance of weariness disappears from his expression.

          “Hey son, we’re closing soon. Might wanna get ready to leave.” Bucky nods, slipping out of the chair and resisting the urge to stretch out the soreness in his back. It would most likely make his sleeves ride up and he doesn’t want any more strange glances at the part of him where skin should be.

          “Alright.” He doesn’t quite hide the disappointment in his expression. The man pauses, his kind eyes considering before he nods, seeming to have decided something.

          “You can take out the book if you’d like,” he says. Bucky frowns a little.

“I don’t have a library card.” The man grins a wide, bright smile.

“We can get you fixed up with one in a split. Come.” The man turns and starts walking towards the stairs. Bucky grabs the book, checking his page before shutting it, and rushes after the man. “I’m Charlie, by the way. Charlie Benfield.”

          “Bucky Barnes.” As he says it, Charlie pauses, turning to squint at Bucky.

          “Really?” His face wrinkles up even more as he scrunches it up. After a few seconds he sighs, shaking his head. “I guess it’s a common name nowadays.” Charlie seems old enough to have lived during the period after World War II, back when Captain America must have been big enough that people talked about Bucky Barnes as well. Hopefully Charlie doesn’t recognize the likeness between him and… himself.

          They make their way down to the first floor, Charlie occasionally staggering just the slightest and waving off Bucky’s attempts to help. It reminds Bucky a little of how Steve would refuse help when they got home at the end of the day and had to climb a couple flights of stairs to get to their apartment. When they finally get to the front of the library, a tiny old woman is sitting in a swivel chair in front of an old looking computer. For an old woman, she packs a hell of a punch, and is currently using it to beat at the computer.

          “Gosh darned machine, never worked a day in its life. Get off your arse and do something, you lazy old bucket of bolts,” she’s grumbling to it as Charlie and Bucky come up to the desk.

          “Evie darling, don’t be so cruel to the poor thing,” Charlie says, a smile in his voice that matches his eyes. The tiny old woman rolls her eyes, sending Charlie a dark look. Bucky doesn’t know how anyone can look that annoyed with someone as sweet as Charlie but “Evie” is managing it just fine.

          “What’s it ever done for me? I owe it nothing.” A harsh slap to the spacebar. “Speaking of, what’ve you done for me lately?” Charlie just smiles wider.

          “I made dinner last night,” he says, leaning closer to her. Evie grumbles more, but tilts her face out so Charlie can press a kiss to her cheek. For a second Bucky’s worried, wants to look around to make sure no cops are watching. During the time he can remember, a black man and white woman openly showing affection towards one another was unheard of, at least not in public. Bucky’s worried for their safety. Then he remembers it’s the 21st century and that things have changed for people of all different colors.

          “So who’s this handsome devil?” Bucky’s pulled out of his thoughts by Evie’s flirty tone. He doesn’t know what she’s talking about; he knows he looks about one degree better than a homeless person. But if her wiggling eyebrows are any indication, she thinks he looks like one of the charming movie stars Becca used to fawn over so much Bucky would have to leave the room. Bucky feels himself flush for some reason and clears his throat.

          “Bucky, Ma’am, Bucky Barnes.” Evie’s eyes go wide and happy at that.

          “Oh, like from back in my day! Funny how people name their kids nowadays. Your mom must’ve been a huge Captain America fan,” Evie says, grinning widely with a teasing, sweet glint in her eye. It’s a fairly drastic change from the flirtatious minx from a minute go, and an even bigger change from the grumbly, technologically challenged woman before that. Bucky decides to just go with it.

          “Yeah, sorta.” He can remember coming home all beat up from Steve getting them in a fight and how his Ma would scold him and send him disappointed looks even with a split lip. Meanwhile, she fawned over Steve like a mother hen, using the best bandages and giving him sweets to make him feel better. Steve, the little shit, would grin over at Bucky cheekily when his Ma wasn’t looking, bragging at his luck.

          “Well, my name is Evelyn Dunett. What can I do for you, Bucky?” Evie grins.

          “The boy needs a library card, Evie,” Charlie says, prodding her lightly in the side. Evie attempts to bat his hand away, missing by a mile but not looking over even then.

          “Won’t take any time at all, sweetheart. We’ll just need your name and email address.” Uh oh.

          “I um, I don’t have an email address.” Thankfully, they don’t blink at him like he’s crazy like Noah did this morning when Bucky revealed he didn’t know what Harry Potter was.

          “Well then.” Evie shoves Charlie out from behind the counter with her hip. Well, she tries. Charlie makes a nuisance of himself and blocks the way. “Good Lord, Charles Joseph Benfield if you do not move this very second!” He moves by then, so she doesn’t finish her threat, but Bucky thinks she didn’t have one to begin with. “Now come with me, Bucky.”

          Bucky exchanges a confused, on his part, look with Charlie, who just shrugs and gestures after Evie. Hopelessly lost, Bucky trails after the tiny woman over to a row of computers. She bends over, a frightening crack emanating from her back as she does, and begins to type furiously on the keyboard, breaking this up with small periods of jerking the mouse around. Finally, she stands up straight, another crack narrating it, and claps her hands together.

          “There, put in your username and password. Then we’ll be all set.” Bucky moves closer to the computer to see it’s a Gmail registration page.

[ _jbbarnes@gmail.com_ ](mailto:jbbarnes@gmail.com)

_steviethepunk_

 

          “There.” Bucky stands up straight again to look at Evie. She’s about a foot shorter than him, giving him a quick picture of a Steve looking up at him with a black eye and a wide grin. He assumes it’s not from a specific memory, but instead a common occurrence that his mind has wheedled down to one image to save space. That is, if he thinks of his brain like a machine, and it’s not anymore, _it’s not_.

          “Alright sweetie, let’s go get your card then.” Bucky nods, following her back to the front desk. Charlie is chatting with a mother, her son squirming in her arms. He looks so friendly, handing the kid a green lollipop as he talks to the mother about a new series they just got in. Bucky aches for a time when he could talk with people that easily. After Noah this morning and this short interaction with these librarians, he feels drained and wants nothing more than to curl up on his couch and watch the show _Friends_ that he’s gotten a little attached to. “Here you go.”

          Bucky looks up to see Evelyn holding out a little card, plastic like a credit card and gold with a little writing on it. He examines it for a few seconds before handing it back to check out his book. She pulls out a black scanner and beams a red light over the barcode of the book, a soft beep accompanying it, doing the same to the card, before handing both the book and the card back to Bucky. With quiet goodbyes, Bucky leaves the library and begins his walk down the road.

          The big town clock says it’s 5:27 when Bucky walks by and he realizes that he’s hungry. Since moving to Oyster Bay, he’s changed up his eating schedule a bit; breakfast at the diner, no food all day, and then dinner wherever he wants. He doesn’t know if he’s ready for cooking yet (one glance at the stove had Bucky wincing from all the memories) but he can do microwave dinners. There’s a grocery store a few streets away from his apartment, but he only knows how to get to it from his house.

          After a minute or so of re-working the directions in his head, he starts for the grocery store and arrives in just under eight minutes. Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese with broccoli is Bucky’s favorite, so he heads directly to the back of the store, the freezer aisle. He drops two of those in his basket and then a frozen pizza just in case. Pausing when he sees a tiny leather bound notebook, he reaches out to pick it up. Steve used to have one like it, a bit bigger, and would sketch in it. For some reason, he drops that in his cart as well, thinking he’ll find some reason for it eventually. A bottle of orange juice and a couple cans of ginger ale later, he’s at the checkout counter and paying for his groceries.

          He walks home, two bags in one hand, leaving the other one free in case of ambush. The night ends with Bucky curled up in his ugly purple armchair (which he’s grown awfully fond of in the past few days) with his new book in his lap and a bowl of mac and cheese in his hand.

 

*~*~*

 

          It’s 1:34 in the morning. Bucky has slept for a grand total of 46 minutes. In those 46 minutes Bucky had a vivid memory of The Winter Soldier slipping through a deadly quiet hostel and slitting the neck of a runaway who had the knowledge to cure a deadly disease Bucky can’t remember the name of. Of course, another woman in the room woke up, which prompted others to as well, and The Winter Soldier had to kill them too. Innocent women dead, just because they caught bleary glimpses of The Winter Soldier through the dark. Bucky can remember the feeling of each throat giving under his knife, can remember not even feeling anything at all as he dropped the bodies onto the floor like old, crumpled up wrappers, can remember how efficiently it was done and how that was a _good_ thing, and that’s the worst part.

          He can’t remember losing his first tooth or his first day of school or the first date he went on but he can remember murdering a whole room of women who were just looking for a nice vacation.

          The feeling he’s having now, which took him quite a bit to identify, is fear, fear of going back to sleep. He doesn’t want to relive the missions he had no choice in, doesn’t want to become The Winter Soldier anymore. So he sits on the couch and watches early morning talk shows that really don’t appeal to him. It’s after his third cup of coffee that his eyes catch on the little notebook he bought a couple days ago.

          Bucky finds himself reaching out for it, picking up the small notebook and opening up to the first page. There aren’t any lines, so it’s a lot like Steve’s old sketchbooks, and there are way more pages than one would expect a notebook that size to hold. He thumbs at the first page with his right hand, letting the paper catch in the grooves of his thumbprint. That’s when an idea pops into his head. He needs a proper timeline for his memories, something to place them on so he knows what order they happened in, and here he’s got a portable little book that would work perfectly.

          After finding a pencil, he sits on the couch, leaning over the coffee table, and tries to conjure up his earliest memory. When he’s a child, it’s easier; the smaller he is in the memory, the younger he was when it happened. The smallest he can remember being is halfway up the dining room table in the apartment he grew up in. His mother is sitting in a creaky wooden chair, wearing a beautiful polka dot dress, an emerald green color with white polka dots, her stomach bulging out so far she has to push her chair out farther so she can fit.

          A curious child’s voice asks, “Ma, what you have fo’ bekfist to make you so big?” The memory ends with his mother laughing down at him, a wide smile on her face.

          Bucky writes it down, carefully because it’s been a long time since he’s had to write and because he wants this to be legible. It’s important.

          The next memory is familiar, at least now. He’s still small, hardly reaches the middle of his bed, tossing and turning all night because that _thing_ in the other room won’t stop crying. It was cute when Ma brought it home, but Bucky is really over it by now. Sure, it’s got his eyes, which is kinda cool, but it spits up everywhere and hasn’t let Bucky get a full night of sleep in _forever_. Then the memory cuts out.

          Bucky gets two more down before everything gets too scrambled to figure out. He decides to leave it for now and switches over to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

 

*~*~*

 

          It’s raining out, so he can’t go to the park, and the library’s closed because it’s some Jewish holiday that Bucky doesn’t know the name of. All of this on top of the fact that Bucky doesn’t want to have to start carefully calculating every purchase leads to Bucky’s decision about what he’s going to do today. There’s another safe house of Hydra’s just outside the city with enough money inside it for Bucky to live comfortably for another three months on top of the four and a half he already has.

          The jacket is too suspicious in the kind of place he’s going, so he tugs a hoodie on over his usual apparel and hopes it’s not as noticeable. With a glove on his left hand and three knives and three guns to match, he makes his way across the street to the diner. He’ll need sustenance to go back to a place as dark and controlling as a Hydra facility. All of the safe houses he knows of have one of his customized torture chairs inside them, every last one. A small part of him wants to burn the place to the ground, but sometimes there’s useful information in them and Steve and his friends need any information they can get. The only worrying part is that the safe house might not be empty.

          Mostly Bucky doesn’t want to kill again, doesn’t think Steve would like it very much, but if he recognizes a face from those awful moments of torture, he doesn’t know if he has it in him to leave them alive.

          “Morning, Bucky,” Noah says, grinning at the name. Only two days ago did Bucky finally reveal his name. Telling Noah his name felt like he was accepting this quasi-acquaintanceship as a real thing. He didn’t know if he was ready for friends, or friend-like people, yet. But so far it’s not going too poorly.

          “Morning,” Bucky grunts back. Just because they’re quasi-acquaintances doesn’t mean Bucky’s any better at socializing. It’s drizzling out, not too hard yet, but it’s supposed to pick up in the afternoon. Hopefully he can get back into town before it’s too bad. Thunder and Bucky don’t mix very well.

          “Lovely morning, isn’t it?” Noah drawls with a half-roll of his eyes. One thing Bucky likes most about Noah is the sarcasm. It’s oddly familiar and something Bucky can get behind pretty easily.

          “They don’t close the trains down when it rains, right?” Bucky asks instead of a witty remark. It’s a question that’s been nagging at his brain since 2:30 this morning, when he woke up. He had a bad dream about freezing cold metal and too hot liquid and a hand slapping him over and over again until the words that spilled out of his mouth resembled more like that of a machine’s than a person’s. It left him shaky and awake with long hours separating him from the grace of morning. Mornings meant the diner and Noah and sunshine. Nighttime only brought the darkness out in Bucky.

          “Nope.” Noah makes a popping sound with his mouth when he hits the “p”. “Not unless it’s really bad, and it’s only supposed to be light thunderstorms today.” He comes over to the table, walk not as staggering as it usually is, and Bucky feels weirdly proud. “Why? Planning on going somewhere?” A menu is placed in front of him.

          “Yes.” Bucky picks up the menu, reads the specials, and puts it back down. “French toast with a bowl of fruit and a hardboiled egg.” He’ll need carbs for the strain today is sure to put on him.

          “What to drink?” Noah slips out of the chair, taking the menu with him.

          “Blueberry cream slushie.” Bucky had decided on it yesterday at the library. Blueberries were a yearly treat Bucky remembers from before the war. Every year, around June, Mrs. Kandowsky would come back from a festival down in New Jersey with blueberries by the pound. Bucky’s Ma always used to plant-sit for her when she’d go, and then get payed in blueberries. Always too much, even for a family of six, so Bucky would take them over to Steve’s and they’d eat them until their fingers turned purple from the juices. They’d always save some though, ‘cause Sarah Rogers could do wonders with blueberries. A sauce for their toast, a cobbler to keep them warm in their beds dreaming about it, but the very best had to be her famous blueberry zucchini bread. Even the boys on the block would stop giving Steve such a hard time in June, not wanting to run the risk of not getting a slice of the delicacy. Bucky and Steve got to sit in the kitchen, soak in the smells, and be the first taste testers of the year.

          And, well, it’s June 2nd and Bucky’s been subconsciously craving this for a while now. So much so that he’s even dabbled with the idea of cooking his own meals again, and then maybe trying that zucchini bread. Not that it could hold a candle to Sarah Rogers’.

          “So.” Noah tumbles back into his chair with minimal grace. And he’d been doing so well today too. “Where’re you heading?”

          “The city.” Bucky keeps his answers short. He can lie at the drop of hat, but he can remember not liking it that much, and he doesn’t want to have to lie to his new quasi-acquaintance.

          “Really? Back for a visit?” Bucky nods.

          “Of sorts.” That should be enough for now, hopefully. Noah changes topics fairly easily.

          “Last time I was in the city…” There we go. Bucky listens to stories about Broadway plays that he can only remember dreaming about seeing. The most Bucky ever got was a flapper show Jenny snuck him and Steve into as a birthday present. The whole mood was kind of dampened by the fact his kid sister was up there, but it was pretty interesting nonetheless. As Noah goes on about some lady named Mary Poppins, Bucky contents himself with trying to understand every other sentence while simultaneously enjoying the thick smells wafting from the kitchen.

          When the bell dings and Bucky’s food comes out, Noah takes a break from their chat to make a phone call. Bucky takes advantage of this short intermission to draw up his plan for later. The safe house is mostly an abandoned warehouse with one long hallway leading up to the center. The center houses cots, a kitchen, and some communal bathrooms before branching out to the room containing the chair. Certain houses have a cryogenic chamber as well, but this one is one of the lower levels.

          Being a low level house, basically every Hydra agent in the agency knew about it, so its inhabitants could range from a low-level desk jockey to handlers or more. Most of the highest ranking agents were arrested or killed during the attack on the Triskelion; Bucky has read the emails Steve gets. But there still could be rats lingering, just waiting for the right moment to try and take down the good guys once again. Maybe Bucky can help get rid of a few. In the good way. No killing. Maybe.

          “French toast is great,” Bucky tells Noah when he gets back. The kid positively beams at that; Bucky hardly ever speaks first.

          “Yeah, Sheila’s pretty good. Been cooking since she was young, her dad owned the diner before her, and her grandpa co-ran a fancy restaurant in Manhattan for a while. Recipes are old as balls.” Bucky frowns a little at that; how old are balls? He’ll have to look up the expression later. Noah continues to talk, something about a diet he’s on that he hates because it won’t let him eat something called Skittles in large quantities and Bucky’s tempted to tell him about the caramels Shirley Johnson used to sell down by the docks. Sometimes there’d be nuts in them, once in a while nougat, but they were deliciously homemade and stuck in his teeth for days after.

          “Do you know Evelyn and Charlie down at the library?” Bucky asks when there’s a lull. Noah squints for a second, which Bucky’s come to learn is his thinking face, and then shakes his head.

          “I live in Locust Valley; it’s just down North Shore road.” He gestures over his shoulder in the direction Bucky’s never walked in. He prefers to stay in town; anything more is a bit overwhelming right now. “The library there is really nice. They have a lot of programs and stuff, great kids’ department and a friend of my mom’s works the checkout desk.” Noah goes on about the library for a bit before mentioning they let you check out DVDs, and that of course brings up Bucky’s movie learning experience. “By the way, how’s the HP series treating you?”

          “I’ve watched up to Half Blood Prince, but I haven’t finished Deathly Hallows the book yet.” Bucky shoves a piece of French toast in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. He swallows and says, “Voldemort reminds me of Hitler.” Noah nods solemnly.

          “Yeah, there’ve been a bunch of connections made between them.” Bucky doesn’t say how he can remember back when even the name would run shivers down the spines of everyone he knew. Hitler was crazy and worse, he got people to believe in his crazy, which scared everyone in the world at the time. The talks about what was going on in those camps would make some guys cry at night in their cots. The rest of them sat awake, listening to their sobs and trying hard to tamp down their own.

          Breakfast ends quicker than Bucky would like and he finds himself standing on the train platform, waiting for the one matching his ticket to pull in. With the wind blowing so harshly and the cold water hitting the sides of his face, he gets awful flashbacks to a memory of falling, endless falling with only one word on his lips. He shakes himself out of it; today is not a day to get lost in his memories.

          With his fingers dug into the armrests the whole ride, he makes it to the spot just outside the city where the safe house awaits him. There’s a clearing all around it, high grasses, and security cameras on the north and south sides. He takes cover behind a tree to pull off his hoodie. Underneath he’s got his uniform, his Winter Soldier one, and he slides two of the guns in holsters, safeties off. Shooting isn’t optimal, but it can be used to incapacitate. One knife up his right sleeve, one in his hand, and another in the thigh holster on his left leg.

          Silently he slips towards the base, keeping out of the cameras’ views. One hour later there’s a Hydra safe house full of tied up agents, enough information to lead Steve’s friends to a base in Arizona, and a sack of money tucked into Bucky’s pockets. He makes it home with time to spare and finishes Deathly Hallows comfortably on his couch. Overall, it’s a successful day.

 

*~*~*

 

          This morning was good so far, Bucky decides on his way back from the ice cream shop. With his extra money, he decided to treat himself to a sundae, vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup, at a place called Gooseberry Grove. In addition to the chilly treat, he got another choice to add to his day, and he still loves his ability to choose. He sat on a stool with the Coca-Cola logo on it that spun around like the ones he remembered from back in the 30s and ate as much as he could stomach. If he could only finish half because he isn’t used to eating that much still or because it’s a reflex from a time when he shared everything with someone else, he doesn’t know, but the half that he had was delicious.

          Though, this isn’t the reason Bucky’s deemed today so good. He slept until 4:41 this morning, the latest he’s slept since D.C. The reason he woke up was because 3B started making noise, not because of a nightmare, and if he dreamt, he doesn’t remember it. He doesn’t know if it’s a good thing to be happy about a blank, dreamless sleep, but he’d rather not think that much and just enjoy it.

          The diner got busy by the end of his breakfast, but up until then, Bucky and Noah got to talk about the movies he’d lent Bucky. National Treasure one and two were the most recent, and though Bucky liked the historical aspect of it (he remembers history being his favorite subject and annoying Steve with all his little facts) the loud noises brought on some panic attacks and the guy dying in the second one prompted more memories that he hadn’t remembered as of then. Apparently The Winter Soldier got creative with some of his kills, and at least two of his missions involved drowning his targets.

          Since Bucky already had two books waiting for him at home, he couldn’t go to the library just yet, and Evelyn and Charlie didn’t work today anyway. They’ve been extremely helpful with book suggestions and are currently in the process of making him a list of must reads from the past 70 years. So he took a walk, going deeper into the town around the more residential area. It was nice to see kids playing in the street; he hasn’t seen much of it and it makes him feel a little homesick for old Brooklyn. So many of his memories have Steve and him out in the street until late at night when their ma’s would yell out the window for them to come home.

          That led him here, to the ice cream shop, to cool off. Wearing his jacket in the kind of heat June brings isn’t fun, and he’s worried about how he’s going to cope with it when it really gets hot. He’s toying with the idea of maybe showing off his arm, at least to the few people he knows, on extremely hot days. But what if that brings up questions? What if Bucky can’t answer them?

          Now he’s going home, where he has an AC that came with the apartment and will cool off the hot metal of his arm. He socialized a decent amount today, and he’s been trying to push himself to spend more time outside with the rest of the world. Sure, he’d kept to himself in the ice cream parlor, writing in his notebook about the time Jenny was born and when he saw his first picture show, which was Peter Pan. But he was very friendly with the girl who served him, and he’d initiated conversation that morning in the diner, which he hardly ever does.

          He reaches his apartment building quickly, since the ice cream shop is just down the road, and pulls out his keys. He has two; one for the front door and one for the door to his actual apartment. For some reason, having the rights to his own living space makes him feel in control, and he loves his control like he loves his choices; as passionately as a man who was once deprived of such things should. Just as he gets up to the second floor, the door from the second floor hallway opens up to the staircase.

          Bucky stares at the most common place a head would be to find it empty. He frowns and looks down to see a little girl teetering dangerously onto the stairway platform. She’s tiny, Bucky places her age around 3 years but she’s small for it, with straight black hair that reaches just past her chin. With a huge grin on her face, a dimple in one cheek, she toddles over to Bucky, gripping the pocket of his pant leg in a chubby tan hand. The child is of Asian descent, he can tell, and he’s guessing Filipino by the skin color and facial features.

          “Hi!” she chirps in a candy sweet voice.

          “Hello.” Bucky frowns down at her. A part of him wants to run away, like retreating from the enemy, but a deeper part of him, the big brother part of him, makes him stay. This little girl shouldn’t be without supervision. Where are her parents?

          “Hi!” the girl says again, opening and closing her other chubby hand at him like a wave. In his mind, Bucky debates it, but the brother in him ends up winning, and he bends down, scooping the little girl into his arms. She giggles, clapping, and pulls at his hair. “Pity.” Bucky thinks she means “pretty” but he can’t be sure.

          “You’re the pretty one,” he tells her in a cooing voice. Apparently, there are some things even Hydra brainwashing can’t take out of him. For a second, he imagines Pierce’s face if he saw his precious asset now, living in suburbia with a little Filipino girl dressed in blue overalls squealing in his arms. He’s pulled out of the delightful fantasy by the girl giggling again and he remembers his task; find the girl’s parents. Pushing open the door to the second floor, Bucky walks out into the hallway. Halfway down, there’s a woman who resembles the girl in his arms, bent over a blue stroller as a smaller baby fusses as she tries to strap him in.

          “Crisanto,” she mutters, adding “Stop squirming” in a language Bucky takes longer to figure out the name of than to understand the words. It’s strange, since he can recall extensive language training, but not which languages he was taught. Apparently Tagalog was a big enough priority to the Soviets that they taught it to him. Bucky walks over to her, purposefully making his steps noticeable and loud enough so he doesn’t spook her.

          “Ma’am, I think this little one belongs to you.” The woman looks up, her eyes catching on him, and then straightens up. Her eyes narrow as she takes in her daughter playing with Bucky’s hair, a delightful smile on her face as she babbles about something. He thinks it’s about ducks, but it could be a bath for all he knows. Rubber ducks are a thing, right?

          “Do you babysit?” she asks. Bucky blinks at her.

          “What?” Is she asking an assassin to watch her children? She doesn’t know he’s an assassin, but still. A stranger? Who looks vaguely homeless?

          “Rayna likes you. She doesn’t like anyone. Do you babysit?” Bucky tries not to gape at her.

          “I, uh, I guess I could.” The woman nods.

          “Good. I’m Isabel. What apartment are you?” Even though she comes up to about Bucky’s shoulder, she’s extremely intimidating, and he has a vague thought that Hydra should’ve used her as an interrogator if they wanted information fast.

          “Bucky. 3C.” Isabel nods once more, gives him a considering look for an extra-long second, and then grins, a dimple popping in the same cheek it did on Rayna.

          “Okay, be here tomorrow at 4:00. We’ll talk.” Bucky watches as Isabel takes back Rayna and drives the stroller with the baby over to the elevator. He waves back when Rayna opens and closes her hand at him again, feeling a little dazed. Did he just get a job?

 

*~*~*

 

          When Bucky pushes open the door to the diner, he’s surprised to see another person already leaning against the counter. It’s a girl, wearing the typical fashion of a teen in these days. Long, dark brown hair with a few streaks of purple in it, tall with long legs and a short torso, and with a body Bucky is pretty sure the word “curvaceous” applies to. Whoever she is, she’s making Noah go all mushy eyed at her, grinning like a goof.

          Both of them look over when the door opens, the girl with a smile on her face and Noah with a worried little furrow in between his eyebrows. She’s pretty, the girl, dark skin that’s unmarred by a blemish or scar. A wide nose with round brown eyes and thin lips make up her facial features with a round chin and low forehead. The most interesting thing about her, though, is the black ring in her nose, a piercing, which Bucky hasn’t seen on a person as of yet.

          “Hi,” the girl greets. “You must be Bucky. I’m Trina.”

          “Miss.” He nods at her.

          “Come on.” She turns and walks over to his regular table. “Noah told me he’s been giving you a movie-education and has left out some of the best chick flicks out there.”

          “Chick flicks?” Bucky questions, following her mostly because he likes the seat he has. It has the perfect view of everything in the diner, back to the wall so he’s always facing the entrance, and just out of reach from the windows so no sniper can get a good shot. Well, no normal sniper; Bucky probably could.

          “Ridiculous name.” Trina waves her hand dismissively. “They’re romantic movies, most of them comedies as well, usually about a woman who’s fallen in love, in the process of falling in love, or just prior to falling in love. They vary a lot in stories even though they all have the same basic building blocks and are extremely entertaining on every occasion.”

          “Some of them are incredibly cheesy, though,” Noah adds, taking the third seat at the table.

          “That only makes them funnier,” Trina argues.

          “Mango smoothie, please. And pancakes with a bowl of fruit,” Bucky tells Noah. He stopped using a menu last week.

          “Sure.” Noah scrambles out of his seat, flushing as he does, probably because Trina is watching him.

          “So how have you missed all of these movies over the years?” Trina asks, giving him a peculiar look. When Bucky falters for a second, she shakes her head. “Never mind, your life is your own. But here.” She stands up and walks over to the counter, rummaging through a tote bag that is most probably hers. She returns with two DVDs in hand, one labeled _The Wedding Planner_ and one labeled _27 Dresses_. “These are the first of the wedding themed ones. There are a lot of wedding themed ones.”

          “Thank you,” Bucky says, taking them. One cover features a Latina woman with her hair up and the other has a black and white drawing of a dress with a little pink bow around the middle.

          “In the future, if I can’t make it, I’ll give them to Noah to pass over to you.” She picks up a sugar packet from the table and starts playing with it. Bucky can remember a time when sugar was as precious as gold to the kids on his block, and to see packets of them just lying around to be taken seems so strange to him, even now.

          “Why are you here?” He doesn’t mean it in an accusatory way; he doubts Hydra has agents this young. But for the past month it’s just been him and Noah here in the mornings so there must be something that prompted this visit. Trina grins at him, delighted at his question.

          “I asked Noah if he wanted company during his ass o’clock shifts and he told me he’d made a friend who came in every day. Obviously, I didn’t believe him. Noah isn’t the best at socialization.” Her voice is teasing, even though Noah isn’t there to hear it, and the familiarity of it brings up memories of Bucky telling his fellow soldiers about Steve before he became Captain America.

          He shrugs at her words, saying “I’m not either.” Trina smiles softer at that.

          “Well, thank you. For talking to him. He really hated this shift before you showed up and you gave him a reason to stay.” She pauses, fidgeting a little with the sugar. “He really needs the money.” Bucky frowns.

          “Why?” Trina bites her lip, looking torn, but Noah comes back before she can answer, Bucky’s drink in hand.

          “Aw, you didn’t bring _30 Flirting and Thriving_? Mark Ruffalo is bomb in that.” Trina rolls her eyes.

          “It’s not exactly part of the wedding category.” She looks to Bucky as if he’ll agree with her, despite the fact that she knows he’s probably never seen it.

          “At the end, there’s a wedding,” Noah argues.

          “Yeah, no, five minutes of a movie doesn’t qualify it for a category. It’s in the magic section.” At the petulant look Noah gives her she sighs. “Fine, you can bring it in if you want.” He grins. Poor Bucky just wanted pancakes and now he’s third wheeling it hard as the pair of teens grin at each other goofily. So he gets a little revenge.

          “So, how long have you two been dating?” They both flush and look away.

          “Oh, um.” Noah coughs.

          “We’re not-we wouldn’t- I mean, we’re not dating,” Trina stutters out. Bucky just smiles to himself and picks up his mango smoothie, taking a long sip.

 

*~*~*

 

          “Son, come over here,” Charlie calls from a few rows away. Bucky just finished another chapter in _To Kill a Mockingbird_ , which is apparently one of the most popular books he missed while he was frozen. He likes it so far. It reminds him of how things used to be and makes him feel grateful for the changes that have been made since then. It’s almost as if even though the world has done such horrible things, it can also do good things and it gives him hope for a better future for himself.

          But Charlie is calling him, so Bucky checks the page he’s on before closing the book and leaving it on his chair, following Charlie’s voice over to the Red-Sic row in the fiction section. Charlie looks slightly out of breath as he sits on one of the step stools hovering around for the higher shelves. In front of him is a mostly full book cart and a strangely empty shelf. Bucky walks over to him and stops.

          “Would you do an old man a favor and put those books away?” Charlie asks, a self-deprecating smile on his face. Bucky nods without replying and begins shelving the books, being careful to keep them in the correct order. “How far have you gotten in that list Evie gave you?”

          “I’ve finished four of them so far.” Bucky glances back to see Charlie’s eyebrows go up.

          “Impressive,” he says, nodding slowly. Bucky shrugs, putting a book with a bright yellow cover on the shelf.

          “I have a lot of free time.” It’s true. While he does go to the diner for an hour or two a day and walks around the nearby park pretty often, most of his time is spent at home, sifting through his memories, reading, or watching the dot on his laptop that represents Steve move around the world.

          “I loved reading at your age too,” Charlie says, eyes going far away as he drifts to the past. Fleetingly, Bucky wonders if that’s what he looks like when he delves into a memory. “Anything I could get my hands on, really. It was hard, being a man of my color back then. They didn’t let the colored schools have any of the newest books, so the classics became my best friend.” Charlie pauses and chuckles a little to himself. “Well, actually, it was Evie who was my best friend.” That gets Bucky’s eyebrows to wrinkle.

          “You were friends back then?” Charlie nods, smiling softly.

          “Oh, son, you don’t know the story? It’s pretty great, if I do say so myself.” Charlie pushes himself up off the stool just as Bucky puts the last book in place. “Go grab your novel and meet me by the front. Evie loves telling it any chance she gets.” He walks away in that slow but sure way of his and Bucky pauses only for a second before following his instructions. When he gets to the checkout desk, Evie is busy checking in the returned books and Charlie is making his way over.

          “Hello there Bucky.” Evie grins brightly at him. For some reason, both of them have taken a shining to Bucky in the past couple of weeks. Sometimes when they refer to him as “sonny” or mention something about “their day” Bucky debates telling them that he’s actually older than them both, but refrains from doing so for the sake of his cover. “What can I help you with today?”

          “He’s never heard our story, Evie.” Charlie comes up to the counter, smiling at the instantly excited glint in Evie’s eye.

          “Oh, you’ll love it. I know I do.” Evie scoots her way over to some armchairs a few feet away from the desk and sits down in the plush, brownish-gold colored one that makes her look like a queen in her throne. She certainly has the attitude for it. Charlie, her ever-loving king, sits in the green one next to her, instantly laying his hand on top of hers. Bucky follows, taking the blue chair with the different colored polka dots on it, and waits patiently for them to start.

          “It was 1947,” Charlie starts in a deep, ominous voice but with a smile on his face. Evie slaps at him to cut it out.

          “Let me, let me.” She clears her throat, throwing a dignified expression onto her face. “It was 1947. I had just turned 5 years old a week earlier and was so excited about school that I was spending all day in the library to prepare.”

          “I know it seems like such a long time ago to you young folk,” Charlie says with a conspiratorial smile. “But we were both born in the forties. Might as well be the Stone Age to you, huh?” Bucky nods, holding back a smile at the fact he was born 25 years earlier.

          “I had just picked out the new book my older brother and my daddy had read the day earlier when I heard someone yelling at me…”

         

Evie’s coveralls are dirty from running through the forest to get to the library and the fancy ladies across the street who her mom eats lunch with are giving her disapproving looks but she can’t bring herself to care. In her hands, Evie holds the book her older brother and her daddy read just the day before and now she’s going to read it all on her own! Daddy is going to be so impressed; he’ll buy her sprinkles on her ice cream this Friday. Of course, Daddy doesn’t even know she’s here and if he knew, he probably wouldn’t be too happy about it, but Evie disregards that part.

          Just as her tiny fingers go to pry open the cover, a voice calls out “Hey!” She sits up straighter in her seat on the steps into the library and looks over to see a colored boy frowning at her. She frowns back.

          “Hey is for horses,” she says back prissily. Her mother says that all the time to her, but Evie ignores that part. The boy rolls his eyes at her, taking a few steps closer.

          “You can’t _steal_ books from the library. It’s against the law,” he tells her, voice serious and eyes stern. His lips are pursed like he expects her to feel remorse about taking out a library book.

          “It’s a library, dummy.” She rolls her eyes back at him. “You’re _supposed_ to take out books.” The boy looks angry at her snappish attitude for a second before going confused.

          “You can take out the books?” She frowns harder at him.

          “Course,” she says even though Mother tells her it’s “Of course”. “It’s a library; you take out books and return ‘um when you’re done.” The boy looks gob smacked, falling down onto the step in front of her.

          “Really?” he asks, awe in his voice. Evie suddenly straightens up, feeling regal at the prospect of having entertaining information. She likes attention, always has.

          “Yes, it’s all very formal,” she says in her pretend play Queen’s voice. “You get a card with your name on it and give it to the checkout counter lady. She writes down your name and the book and gives you a card so you know when to bring it back. Then you get the book until then; it’s all yours.” The boy’s eyes just widen with every word. Evie likes how he seems genuinely interested, listening to everything she says as if the words themselves are sacred. Not many people listen intently to five year olds.

          “Wow,” he finally sighs, slumping back against the step behind him, the one Evie’s on. “It sounds amazing.” Confusion hits Evie, scrunching up her forehead and nose.

          “You mean your library doesn’t let you take out books?” The boy shrugs, glancing back at her.

          “Colored libraries think we’ll steal ‘um and won’t give ‘um back, I guess.” He stares longingly at the book in her hands. “Must be wonderful to get to take it home, almost like it’s yours.” Evie bites her lip, glancing down at her book and then back at the boy. She really hates sharing, but the forlorn look on the boy’s face she hates more.

          “Come on.” She stands up, brushing off the dirt from her coveralls ineffectually.

          “Where are we going?” The boy scrambles up anyway.

          “There’s a spot in the woods, my treehouse.” It’s really her brother’s, but he hasn’t played there in a while. “We can read together.” The boy’s eyes widen as wide as saucers before a huge, blinding grin breaks out of his face.

          “Thank you.” His voice is dripping sincerity. Evie rolls her eyes.

          “Don’t get all sappy on me now, Mister. I just need help with the big words.” Evie starts marching back the way she came, the boy following close behind.

          “I’m Charlie, by the way. Charlie Benfield.” Evie glances back at the boy-Charlie- and offers him a smile.

          “Evelyn Dunett, but my friends call me Evie.” She turns forward again, catching only a glimpse of Charlie’s confusion.

          “Are we friends?” Evie just giggles, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the woods.

 

          Bucky listens intently, trying to remember what it would be like for a black boy and a white girl to be friends back in his time. He remembers the looks Gabe used to get when they’d stop at camps during the Howling Commandos, and before that when they were in the same platoon together. Gabe was very good at tactical combat, which he proved the second he arrived at the camp. Anyone who had anything to say about the color of his skin had to take it up with the rest of them.

          But that didn’t mean people didn’t say things; can’t keep people from gossiping, that’s the one thing Bucky learned. The awful slurs and questioning of Gabe’s skills, all because the color of his skin happened to be different. People reject differences, always have, and one of the good things Bucky’s discovered about the future is that the “differences are bad” mentality is starting to change.

          “Of course, back then, a black boy couldn’t be seen with a white girl without causing a ruckus,” Evie says, rolling her eyes probably exactly the same way she did back then. “I never got it, neither did my brother, bless his heart, but our parents didn’t feel the same way…”

         

          Evie is 9 years old and her best friend is a black boy named Charlie. Her coveralls are still perpetually dirty and she refuses to wear the skirts her mother buys her because how can she go running through the woods in a skirt, Mother? Her older brother, Thomas, he understands and does his best to hold back their parents, but he’s the Good child. No matter how hard Evie tries, she can never be Tommy, so eventually she gives up trying to be.

          Never had she ever thought being friends with Charlie would count as bad.

          They’re walking home like they usually do after meeting in the treehouse to read and draw. Tommy said Evie could have the treehouse, since he’s 11 now and doesn’t have time for childish games, so she and Charlie were celebrating today. They didn’t have much, but Evie had swiped some Hershey chocolates from the bowl at the bank the day before when she went with her mother and the two kids got to toast with the sweets before eating them up greedily.

          Evie only gets ice cream on Fridays if she’s good and she hasn’t been good in a long time, so she’s missed sweets dearly. Charlie gets even less than she does, so she let him have the bigger piece even though she still hates sharing. Sharing doesn’t seem as bad when it’s with Charlie though. Nothing does.

          “…Little Dipper too, which is like the big one but smaller.” Charlie is telling her about the stars. Most of the time Evie likes what Charlie tells her, likes the facts he keeps only for her, and she stores them away with the other things she learns during their meetings. But right now she’s more focused on his voice than the words, the smoothness of it as it washes over her. Yesterday her daddy whooped her behind because she failed a math exam, but she just doesn’t get it like the other kids do. Give her a book any day, but math might as well be a foreign language. But today, when Charlie helped her go over what she did wrong and teach her the right way, her bottom didn’t ache at all.

          Sometimes she glances at Charlie too long, watches the way his mouth moves with too much attention. Their fingers will touch as he passes her back the pencil they share and it feels like electricity, but then sometimes it just feels normal. Evie doesn’t get it, hasn’t read enough romance novels to know what her feelings mean, but lately she’s been having even more dangerous thoughts. Just like the one she’s having now. Now, more than anything, Evie wants to bend over and kiss Charlie on the cheek, maybe the lips, but the cheek more importantly. That’s how Mother kisses Daddy every day when he comes home from work and it’s the most affection Evie has ever seen in person. She craves to do it with Charlie.

          Just as she’s working up the nerve to do it, Charlie’s information is interrupted with a loud shout.

          “Evelyn Dunett, just what in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Evie looks up in horror to see her father looming just at the edge of the clearing. He looks furious, hands on his hips and murder in his eyes. The only thing Evie can think is that he’s going to hurt Charlie, _her_ Charlie. She turns to him, gripping his arm tightly.

          “Run, Charlie, run,” she whispers furiously. “Don’t stop until you’re home.” Charlie glances at the looming figure, coming closer with every heavy breath he takes.

          “I can’t leave you-” Evie cuts him off.

          “Go home, now Charlie, please.” The tears in her eyes scare Charlie enough to nod, squeezing her hand before rushing back the way they came. Just as he disappears into the darkness, Daddy reaches her, grabbing her roughly by the upper arm.

          “Socializing with a colored boy,” he’s growling. “The indignity of it.”

 

          “That night I got the whooping of a lifetime,” Evie says in a grave voice. It’s the first time Bucky’s ever heard this tone, angry and bitter, and it makes him burn with rage for her father. Bucky’s dad wasn’t the kindest man on Earth either, he used to get a little rough after drinking for a while, but he was in the war and war did things to men. And he never, ever hit the girls, even when they were bad. It just wasn’t right, and his Pa understood that.

          “Still came back to visit me the next day,” Charlie says fondly, rolling his eyes a little.

          “Of course I did; you were my best friend and first crush.” Evie pats his knee. “Now, let me talk. We’re getting to the good part.” She clears her throat again for emphasis. “We kept being best friends all through school, in secret cause my Daddy would’ve skinned me alive if he’d known. We were both madly infatuated with one another, but never said a word about it.” They exchange a funny look. “After high school, I wanted to follow Charlie to college, but my Daddy insisted on sending me to the college where my brother, Tommy had gone. Charlie and I lost touch.” Bucky makes a hurt noise and they smile.

          “We wanted to keep writing letters, but I couldn’t afford postage and Evie’s mother was good friends with the director at the school and would know if she was sending a bunch of letters out to me. It’s sad, but it wasn’t the end of our story.” He turns to Evie, letting her continue.

          “I got a secretary degree, well, it wasn’t called that, but that’s what they were training you for. Women were still expected to stay at home during those times.” Evie rolls her eyes. “I got married, my mother set it up. I didn’t love him, but I cared for him, and we had a little girl. Lucille,” Evie smiles at her name, Charlie covering one of her hands with his own. “She was about 2 when Jeremy died. He got cholera, hung on for a few months, and then passed in his sleep. A lovely man, really, very kind to me. But, of course, I didn’t love him.”

          “During this time, I had finished college,” Charlie says as Evie’s eyes go far off, losing herself in the memory of her first husband. “I became a teacher in a small town in Southern California. Lovely place, taught both white kids and black kids. I had a very nice life there, never got married though.” He winks at Evie, who laughs brightly.

          “He came back into town for the ten year high school reunion,” she continues. “We didn’t go to the same school, but by that time they’d been integrated, more or less, so they had one joint party. I saw him and we caught up, spent all night talking.”

          “When I went back to SoCal,” Charlie continues seamlessly. “We stayed in touch, writing letters and phone calls. About a year into this, I got a job offer from Oyster Bay Elementary School to be a fourth grade teacher. I leapt at the opportunity to move closer to Evie.”

          “Coincidentally,” Evie says in her flirty, teasing tone. “A job at a pediatrics office had just opened up there, and I became the secretary for Dr. Terrence Peterson. Lucy and I moved down from Connecticut, where we lived originally, and into a quaint house just past the high school.”

          “Around this time, people had begun to stop caring about white people and black people socializing, so I asked Evie out on a date, formally.” Evie laughs at something and Charlie smiles like he knows why and did it on purpose.

          “Some formal date that was.” Her eyes are alight with something Bucky’s sure her younger self had in them. “It was Friday night, date night if you will, and Charlie came to my door…”

 

          The doorbell rings and Evie curses to herself. She’s still got rollers in her hair, still in her under gown, and Charlie’s at the door. _Charlie_ Charlie, her lifetime best friend and crush, and Evie’s in her nightie! She grabs her robe, tying it around herself hastily, and rushing to the door, pulling it open with a big breath.

          “Hi.” Charlie fidgets, a bouquet of beautiful tulips in his hand, perfect for spring. He smiles like she’s wearing a gown of diamonds instead of her underthings and, oh dear, he even looks _nervous_. Her Charlie, she thinks to herself, still her Charlie. “These are for you.”

          “Oh, Charlie, they’re wonderful. I’m sorry I’m so late, come in, come in.” She moves aside, taking the bouquet as he walks in.

          “No problem at all.” Charlie looks around the foyer with a smile. “I’ll wait here while you finish.” Evie beams outright, pressing a kiss to Charlie’s cheek quickly before scampering off, her robe flowing out behind her. After putting the flowers in a vase with some water, she changes into the pink dress she had planned to wear tonight, some low heels, and her grandmother’s pearl necklace. She almost walks out with the curlers still in her hair and just gets the last one out when the phone rings. Rushing out to the kitchen, she grabs it on the third ring.

          “Evie Dunett speaking, how may I help you?” Her career as secretary has kind of drilled the polite phone speak into her.

          “Hi Ms. Dunett.” Evie had changed back to her maiden name after Jeremy died. “I’m real sorry but I can’t make it to babysit tonight. I’ve got the flu.” Evie’s heart sinks.

          “It’s alright, Debby.” Debby’s her usual babysitter, sweet girl with orange hair and freckles. “It’s perfectly fine.” Evie sighs to herself, terribly forlorn. After all this time, she still can’t have just one date with her Charlie.

          “Sorry.” They say the proper departing words before hanging up. Evie sighs, reaching to take out her pearl earrings as she walks out to the living room.

          “I’m sorry, Charlie, but-” She freezes on the spot when she sees Charlie on the floor, legs crossed, still wearing his handsome suit, playing patty-cake with Lucy.

          “ _Baker’s man, bake me a cake just as fast-_ ”

          “Charlie?” Both players look up at her voice, Lucy beaming and Charlie looking bashful.

          “She asked me to play,” he says with a grin. Evie just about melts. Then she remembers her news.

          “My babysitter can’t make it,” she tells him. “We’re going to have to cancel.” Charlie frowns for a moment before perking up.

          “We can stay in, if you want.” He shrugs like spending the night with a five year old isn’t a bad way to have a first date. “I can whip up something for us in the kitchen.”

          “Charlie Benfield, you are too good for me.” Charlie hops up, walking over and pressing a kiss to her cheek.

          “Just good enough, I think.”

 

          “We spent the whole night eating macaroni and cheese and reading children’s books.” Evie says it like she’s exasperated with their past selves, but she’s grinning ear to ear. “Lucy adored him, spent every second she could get with him. Made dating pretty hard.”

          “But we got married about a year and a half later,” Charlie says with a squeeze to Evie’s hand. “Fall wedding because Lucy liked the colors.”

          “My parents didn’t come,” Evie says, a small frown on her face. “My mama wanted to, but Daddy told her no. To some people, color was still too big of an issue.” She perks up suddenly. “But my brother, Tommy, he came and walked me down the aisle. Made a sappy toast and everything.”

          “My parents came,” Charlie nods slowly, unfamiliar frown lines around his mouth. He’s always smiling; it’s strange to see the opposite. “But my sister didn’t. Said I was disgracing our kind by marrying a white girl. People were silly back then, son.” Bucky nods solemnly, thinking _Yeah, tell me about it_ in his head.

          “We had a son about, what, two years later?” Evie asks, squinting as she tries to remember. Charlie nods.

          “Two years. Wilson, wonderful boy, Lucy loved him too, loved being an older sister. Used to make him play dress up and have tea parties with her.” Charlie smiles at the memory. “Just like her mom.”

          “Hush now.” Evie shoves at his shoulder. “Well-” She claps her hands together. “Story starts tapering off about there; lived happily ever after as librarians, yadda, yadda, yadda. Nice story though.”

          “We found each other, even after those years apart.” Charlie grips her hand, squeezing again, and Bucky smiles. They both beam at that, as he doesn’t smile often. They get called away to attend to bookish things and Bucky returns to his novel, happier to have learned more about his (he’ll be brave and call them) friends. The library closes soon after that and Bucky makes his way home.

The second after his front door closes behind him, he’s hit with a memory.

          “Stevie?” his voice calls, a heavy bag slung over his shoulder. He’s in a somewhat uniform, the jacket on but open and the slacks without a belt. It’s hot being back in Brooklyn after the freezing cold rains of the Pacific. He just got back from his stint killing Japs and he’s ready for a nice welcome home. Pointedly heavy steps come from the bedroom; Steve always tries to make his steps heavier so he sounds less like the 90 pound guy he is. Bucky finds it endearing.

          Steve stops in the doorway, in an undershirt and shorts and nothing else. Pencil lead dirties his fingers and he’s even got a smudge on his forehead from when he no-doubt tried to push his hair out of his face. He’s slightly sweaty and flushed all over from the heat, but he’s standing there with this disbelieving look on his face and Bucky’s never wanted to kiss him more. Months without his Stevie have made him homesick, craving the nights in their bed, curled around one another. _That’s_ home, Bucky thinks as Steve starts taking steps closer to him, Steve is his home.

          The steps are slow at first but pick up speed as Steve seems to realize Bucky’s actually there, and then he’s sprinting into Bucky’s arms. Bucky barely has time to drop his bag to the floor before he’s wrapping his arms around Steve’s back, hugging him tightly.

          “I missed you, Jerk,” Steve says into Bucky’s neck, voice muffled but loud enough to hear the cracks in it.

          “Missed you too,” Bucky breathes out. “Punk,” he adds for good measure. Steve smells like yesterday’s soap and the herbs of his favorite stew recipe, but under that there’s the inherent _Steve_ smell that’s always calmed Bucky down no matter what. It’s been a rough couple of months, filled with death and bullets and bombings, interspersed with heavy bouts of rain and the occasional monsoon. Bucky’s tired of war already, tired of being the reason someone’s brother, father, boyfriend, husband is dead, tired of being scared every damn second. But here, wrapped up in Steve’s arms, Bucky feels it all slip away until his only thoughts are of Steve and their shared bed.

          “Come on, come on.” Steve pulls back, voice rough and eyes a little wet. “Lemme look at ya. You injured?” His eyes scan over Bucky’s face, not unlike the way they do when Steve sketches him. Though, this is more an assessment, while the way Steve looks at him when he’s sketching is more a caress of his features.

          “M’fine.” Bucky hums, eyes zeroing in on Steve’s mouth. “Missed you,” he says again, because it’s true. Every other thought Bucky had over there was of Steve. Steve looks back into his eyes and flushes when he realizes what Bucky means, smiling a little shyly.

          “Yeah?” he asks, voice laced with something deeper.

          “Always miss you,” Bucky answers, still not looking away from Steve’s mouth. Then he leans in slowly, glancing back at Steve’s eyes to make sure he’s okay with this, and then presses his slightly chapped lips to Steve’s. Pink and soft, like the pillows in that hotel Bucky stayed at for a night in between ship rides. Warm and pliant but pushing too; Steve is never one to give up without a fight. Bucky smiles against Steve’s mouth, suddenly filled with happiness.

          “What’re you grinning about?” Steve tries to sound annoyed, but he only manages fond.

          “It’s just good to be home.”

          Bucky’s shocked back into the present, falling back against his door and breathing heavily. That was new, he thinks to himself, eyes wide.

          Were he and Steve… together?

 

*~*~*

 

          It’s time for Cris’ nap but he just doesn’t want to go to sleep. Bucky has been rocking him softly for about twenty minutes now and nothing. The kid’s eyes are as wide, if not wider, than they were when Bucky started. He glances into the living room, checking on Rayna, who’s watching an episode of _Bubble Guppies_ while enjoying a red lollipop. He knows he’s going to pay for that later when she won’t go down for her nap either, but she just looked so happy when she finally got her wide grin around the treat.

          Bucky looks back down at the baby in his arms. Cris, full name Crisanto, is a handsome fella and most of the time a pretty decent baby, but today he just doesn’t want to take his nap. If it was his baby, Bucky would probably just say “Screw it” and let the kid stay awake, but that would interfere with his sleeping schedule and Isabel gets so little sleep as it is.

          As he swings his body back and forth, trying to lull Cris into a nice sleep, he’s hit with memories once again. Since caring for the kids, he’s remembered a lot more about his sisters, taking care of them and teaching them things. It’s one of his favorite kinds of memories. Changing Becca’s diaper while Ma finished dinner, helping Jenny up the steps to their apartment as her chubby baby legs couldn’t do it on their own, keeping Rosie quiet so Ma could get some sleep.

          These memories, however, have a different central theme. Every one of the minute long clips being dumped unceremoniously over his head, blocking his vision and filling his eardrums, involves a smooth, husky voice singing various melodies. His at-the-time favorite song to dance to, the lyrics of one of his little sisters’ favorite singers’ songs, the tune from one of his Ma’s records he remembers dancing around the living room to. It’s his voice, Bucky realizes startlingly, he’s the one singing. He doesn’t have a bad voice, he notes, almost sensual in a way, but able to clean up if the situation calls for it.

          The most prominent memory is from when he was younger, maybe a teenager, about 13 perhaps. He’s sitting by a worn bed in a wooden chair Sarah Rogers had pulled in from the kitchen so Bucky wouldn’t have to sit on the floor. There’s a blue knit blanket thrown around him so he knows he’s been here for a while; Sarah does it before she leaves for work and when Bucky arrived, she had just been getting off a shift. Bucky blinks himself awake from his impromptu nap to find Steve already staring at him with sleep and sickness glazed eyes.

          “Hey.” Steve’s voice is rough and scratchy, like the words are digging into his throat as he forces them out. Bucky winces in sympathy. “How long you been here?” Bucky shrugs, reaching over to grab the glass of water resting on Steve’s bedside table.

          “An hour maybe, not long.” More like eight, Steve’s rolling eyes say as he accepts Bucky’s help in taking a sip. Bucky pulls back the glass, resting it back on the table, when Steve shakes his head at another sip.

          “Liar.” His voice still sounds harsh, but it’s better than before. He sighs, dropping his head back onto one of the pillows, staring up at the ceiling. Bucky knows he’s been bored; his radio broke last week so Steve’s had to entertain himself with sketching and reading, and after four long days of bed rest, he’s going stir crazy. Bucky’s just about to reach up a hand to brush away some stray hairs from Steve’s face and offer some comfort, when Steve looks up. He’s got a mischievous glint in his eye when he asks, “Sing for me, Buck?”

          Bucky sighs, put upon.  “Whaddya want to hear that for?” He knows he’s got a fairly nice singing voice, but that doesn’t mean he likes to do it in front of people.

          “It’ll be nice to hear.” And there go his Earnest Eyes again, staring into Bucky’s like Steve’s intentions are purely innocent and making Bucky feel like it’s a damned moral obligation to comply. Bucky sighs again.

          “Fine, hold on, lemme just think of a song.” Quickly he runs through his mental record collection until he finds a good one for Steve. He clears his throat dramatically, giving Steve a cheeky grin that Steve mirrors as he rolls his eyes.

          “ _Have you seen the well to do/ Up and down Park Avenue/ On that famous thoroughfare/ With their noses in the air_.” Bucky sticks his nose up, a pompous look on his face, making Steve giggle. “ _High hats and narrow collars_.” Bucky shoves up his collar. “ _White spats and lots of dollars/_ _Spending every dime/ For a wonderful time_.” Bucky shoots out of his chair at the chorus, dancing in time around the room. “ _Now, if you’re blue/_ _And you don't know where to go to/ Why don’t you go where fashion sits_.” He shoves out his hands, freezing his dance moves, “ _Puttin' on the Ritz_!” He sings with gusto. “ _Different types who wear a day coat/_ _Pants with stripes and cutaway coat/ Perfect fits_.” He freezes again, but this time allowing his hands to shake around. “ _Puttin' on the Ritz_!”

          Steve dissolves into giggles on the bed, clutching at his stomach like when he doubles over after being hit, but this time there’s no blood and he’s smiling widely.

          “What’re you laughin’ at?” There’s a huge grin on Bucky’s face. “That was amazin’.” Steve nods fervently, still laughing.

          “Yes,” he gasps out. “It was, it was.” When Steve calms down, he’s wiping tears out of his eyes, so Bucky sits down next to him and makes him take another sip of water. He pulls the glass back to a warm smile from Steve, eyes softer and more focused than before. “Thanks,” he says quietly.

          “Anything you need pal,” and he means it.

          Huh, Bucky thinks to himself, back in the present. He could sing to make Steve feel better. Looking back down at Cris, who’s still blinking up at him with wide brown eyes, he tries to think of a lullaby. He’s frustratingly blank on the ones he used to sing his sisters, but he can remember a Filipino one from some time during the past 70 years. He clears his throat, taking a deep breath, before humming a little and then starting the lyrics.

          “ _Matulog ka na, bunso/ Ang ina mo ay malayo/ At hindi ka masundo/ May putik, may balaho_.” (Sleep now, youngest one/ Your mother is far away/ and she can’t come for you/ There’s mud, there’s a swamp). It’s kind of broken up, the words not exactly right as it’s only half-formed in his mind, but Cris seems to like it, blinking slower as his tiny lips curl upwards. A few more somewhat-correct lines and a messed up chorus later, Cris is breathing softly as he naps, hopefully dreaming about something nice.

          Bucky brings the sleeping kid into the room he shares with his sister, laying him down in the crib, and then heads back into the living room. When he steps through the door, Rayna blinks at him with wide eyes.

          “Mama sing that,” she says. Bucky nods, sitting down on the couch next to her. She immediately clambers into his lap, tugging at his hair.

          “I speak Tagalog too.” She twists around in his lap until she’s facing the TV once again.

          “That cool.” Bucky smiles, watching mer-children swim around the screen. Rayna squeals when the purple one arrives, clapping her hands together.  “Oona, Oona!”

          They watch the show together until Cris wakes up from his nap. Then Rayna switches to coloring as Bucky entertains Cris with some blocks of varying colors. Some of them have numbers on them and some have letters. They’re old, been used before, Bucky can tell, but he knows Isabel doesn’t have a lot of money. She hardly has enough money to pay him, which is why Bucky does this for free. On the weekdays, they go to the daycare across the street called Oyster Babies (Bucky thinks the name is very clever) but the daycare is closed on weekends, so Bucky watches them on Saturdays and sometimes Sundays, but Isabel tries to be home at least one day a week. Isabel’s husband, and the kids’ dad, is out in the city and visits once in a while, but works too often to live with them.

          From their short conversations, Bucky inferred that most of Isabel’s family is still in the Philippines. The one she misses most is her father, who is getting up in years and has never met his grandkids. It makes Bucky want to fix it, but he can’t really leave the country and get back in, let alone bring another person with him. If he really wanted to, there are ways he could get to Europe, but he likes it here in Oyster Bay. It’s safe.

          Isabel gets home around 8:30, just in time to get the kids to bed. Bucky updates her on the day, any big events, which there weren’t. She thanks him profusely, tries to get him to take some money, he refuses. It’s their usual routine. Just before Bucky leaves, Rayna runs into the foyer, a colorful piece of paper clutched in her hand.

          “Buck-ee.” She waves the paper at him, using her other hand to make a grabby signal to him. He sweeps her up into his arms and she giggles, showing him the paper. “You.” She points to a pink stick figure with long hair. “Cris.” She points to the green circle the pink figure is holding. “Song.” Then finally, she drops her pointer finger onto a cluster of purple squiggles Bucky thinks are music notes. He grins widely, not even faking it.

          “Thanks, Ray. I love it.” She beams at him, pressing a slobbery kiss to his cheek, before Isabel takes her back.

          “Bye Buck-ee!” Rayna opens and closes her fist in goodbye. Bucky waves back.

          “Bye-bye.” He takes his drawing and the smile on his face and makes his way back to his apartment. The drawing goes on his bedroom wall so that it will be the first thing he sees in the morning. Tamping down on memories of Steve drawing him, Bucky turns over in his bed, shuts his eyes, and smiles as he drifts off into a dreamless sleep.

 

*~*~*

 

          _Spinning around the room, spinning, spinning, spinning, twirling to a rhythm that pounds in his head. Flouncy skirts that fly in the air with every turn, every step perfectly calculated to form a beautiful spectacle, the push and pull of each move as they dance with every fiber of passion in their bones. The dame has red, red lips that grin to show a perfect white smile as Bucky spins her again._

_“You’ve got some pretty snazzy moves,” she says, her blonde hair falling out of her intricate up-do. She’s pretty, small but feisty, with delicate bone structure and porcelain skin unmarred by a blemish, save for a few beauty marks and the freckles that span across her nose. Beautiful, she really is, and Bucky would forget it’s a dame under his hands if it wasn’t for the green eyes._

_“I’d say it takes practice, but I’m a natural born dancer.” She laughs, her wrong eyes twinkling. It’s not a bad color, a Granny Smith apple green with a few flecks of yellow the shade of a perfectly cooked cake. The kind of color someone would remember, one Bucky would remember, if his mind wasn’t already filled with the clear, crystal sky blue waiting for him at home._

_“Bucky Barnes, it’s a miracle you can walk with such a big head on your shoulders.” Bucky puts on his favorite cocky grin and dips her, whispering in her ear._

_“Now, Darlin’, don’t be like that.” Up she goes, following Bucky’s lead, and doesn’t trip into the next step like most dames. She’s a pretty good dancer too. “It’s just confidence is all. It’s charming.” She giggles, the tops of her pale cheeks going pink, and Bucky knows it’s time to leave soon. With some dames, Bucky can get to this point after one song and a nicely priced drink, but the one in his arms now is a classy kind of girl and if she’s ready to let Bucky do what he pleases it’s been too long._

_The song ends and she falls into him, laughing breathlessly and staring up at him with her apple eyes, twinkling with something less innocent._

_“It’s getting kind of crowded.” Bucky can hear the true meaning to her words and nods, quirking the corner of his mouth up._

_“It is, innit?” They make their way out of the dance hall but as she turns to go home, he pauses. “I’d better be headin’ back now.” Her face falls. “It’s late.” He’d walk her home, but she lives two doors down and he really should be getting home._

_“You sure?” She knows his mind is set, if the slump in her shoulders is anything to go by, but she tries anyway. Bucky nods._

_“I’ll see you ‘round, Annie.” She sighs at him._

_“Yeah.” She takes one step forward. “One more for the road?” She raises a hand in question and he takes it with a smile, twisting her around, the green dress that matches her eyes spinning with her._

_A spinning dress turns into the spinning barrel of a revolver, silver on silver as the weapon attached to the asset spins the cylinder around. One bullet, five extra slots, and an ensuing game of Russian Roulette. A medium sized man with mousy black hair and a mousier black mustache stands next to the asset. He’s not very intimidating, but that’s why the asset is here._

_“My assistant here is going to be the facilitator of our game. I’ll ask a question, and if you don’t answer…” The asset stops listening at that point, having the mission already memorized, and instead focuses on the images playing in the asset’s head. Had the asset danced before, with that girl? The pretty girl with the apple eyes that were wrong, wrong, wrong for some reason._

_The mousy man clears his throat and the asset raises the gun to point at the tied up mission. The trigger is squeezed and a blank pop goes off. The mission flinches and starts to sweat profusely. The dame had sweat that night. But the asset hadn’t licked it off, no, the asset licked sweat off the shoulder of a skinny man. That man had the right eyes, right everything. Where is that man now?_

_Another throat is cleared and the asset shuts down the images. The asset has a job to do. Later, when the asset is strapped to a chair as the attached weapon is repaired, the mousy man provides the information of the asset’s distraction to the man in charge. The asset is beaten as punishment, but until the second the blinding white pain invades the asset’s mind, the asset remembers a pale shoulder composed of delicate bones and a pinkish mark that instills pride in Bucky’s chest even now._

          Bucky wakes up slowly, sweating a little, as this wasn’t his first dream of the night. Blocking out the mission, he focuses on the girl, Annie, her pretty green eyes, the matching dress that never stopped spinning. Once that information is filed away, he latches onto the brief picture of Steve’s shoulder, tries to remember the feeling of sucking a mark into it, and sighs back into the pillows when he does.

          The clock reads 4:30, so Bucky got more sleep than usual last night, and he can feel it in his nerves. He forgoes his coffee and decides to get it at the diner so he’ll have more time with Noah, who’s annoyingly growing even more on Bucky, and gets dressed. It’s getting much too hot for long sleeves, but still Bucky tugs on a shirt with the tag that reads Henley on it, a simple grey one, and his black glove. After tying his hair up with one of the black stretchy bands he bought two days ago, he leaves the building and crosses the street to push his way into the diner.

          “Hey man,” Noah greets cheerfully despite the sleep in his eyes. Bucky nods, sitting at his regular table.

          “Morning,” he says once he’s seated. “I’ll have a coffee black and some pancakes.”

          “Some fruit on the side?” Noah asks, already moving towards the kitchen.

          “Yeah, thanks.” Noah nods before literally falling into the swinging door to the kitchen. Bucky shakes his head, letting his grin bloom full since Noah isn’t here to see it. He tamps it down when the kid returns, plopping down in the chair across from him and setting a mug of coffee in front of Bucky with an endearing amount of concentration. The hair on the right side of Noah’s head is pressed down and sticks up at the top, hinting at the fact that he fell asleep against the counter again, and there are marks in his cheek from his hand, which he probably was leaning on. It brings back memories of when Steve would fall asleep on the couch waiting up for Bucky, which makes Bucky smile a little.

          “Anything new with you?” Noah asks, eyes following Bucky’s flesh hand as it picks up three packets of artificial sugar. Bucky doesn’t like the plastic taste as much as the real kind, but he’ll take what he can get. He has no idea how anyone drinks coffee black; Steve used to, to prove a point, but then finally gave in and put in some cream when Bucky told him drinking it with milk wouldn’t make him a pansy.

          “Not really.”  The hair-tie thing sounds silly to say aloud and it’s not like he can talk about the new memory of a kill in Uzbekistan in 1956. The second packet’s top gets ripped off and its contents are dumped into the cup. “You?”

          “Well…” Noah bites at his lip, eyes suddenly intent on the pattern of the tabletop. Bucky takes note of Noah’s fidgeting hands and shifting weight in his chair and furrows his eyebrows in response.

          “What’s wrong?” Noah shakes his head.

          “Nothing, nothing, I uh, I was just wondering.” A short pause as Noah’s eyes look up to meet Bucky’s. “If you had any tips on asking out girls.” This is not at all what Bucky was expecting. Guns, murder, stealth skills, ask him for tips on that any day, but dames? There was a time when he was good with charming dames, he remembers bits and pieces, but is it enough to teach Noah?

          “What makes you think I know anything about that?” Bucky mutters into his coffee before taking a sip. Noah turns a rosy red, passing pink all together and heading straight to a traffic sign-like color.

          “I-I don’t know!” he splutters. “You-you look like that-” he gestures at Bucky’s face. “Trina likes you; you could be smooth with girls.” He shrugs, blush reducing but the sheepish look on his face cemented in place. “I can’t ask my friends ‘cause they’d make fun of me, I don’t really have an adult male figure in my life, and you’re around my age. I thought you might have some tips.” Bucky frowns at the information; Steve would never laugh at him about something this serious, what kind of friends does Noah have? And where’s Noah’s dad? Bucky goes with the easiest question he has.

          “How old do you think I am?” Bucky asks with a forced wrinkle in his forehead. Truth be told, he melted the second Noah’s shoulders slumped, but it doesn’t mean Bucky can’t have his fun. Noah splutters once again.

          “I-I don’t know, like, 25?” _Close_ , Bucky smiles to himself, _only 73 years off._

          “29.” Factoring in his time out of cryo, Bucky estimates he aged about a year and a half in all of his missions. He had some time on his hands one late night, and using a very helpful Wiki page on hair growth and a crappy ruler he found behind a chair, he determined his almost exact age. Biologically, he’s 29. The weirdest part of his age, and there are a lot of weirdest parts, is that Steve is technically older than him now. Bucky sighs, putting down his cup. “I won’t be much help.”

          “I don’t care; anything you can give me will be great.” Noah perks up, looking attentive in his seat despite the fact that it’s before 5 o’clock in the morning.

          “I used to be good with girls.” He takes another sip of his coffee. “When I was younger.” Noah doesn’t ask what changed, or even looks curious, just keeps staring intently at Bucky. “The one thing I remember is that you’ve got to be yourself or else they’ll see right through you, and be confident. No girl’s going to want to go out with ya if you’re mumbling all of the time.” Noah nods frantically.

          “How many girlfriends have you had?” he asks with a hint of awe in his voice. God, this kid must be desperate. Bucky levels him with a steely look.

          “I don’t remember this turning into an interrogation.”  Noah flushes, not nearly as deeply, but enough to tint his cheeks.

          “Oh, sorry.” Then he waits patiently for Bucky to continue.

          “When you ask her, do something kind of cheesy so she knows you’re stupid for her, but not too cheesy that you’ll embarrass her. If she says no, she means it, and you back off immediately. Uh.” Bucky thinks for a minute, trying to remember the things he did back then and the things Steve did to use as “don’ts”. “Just try to have fun; if you have fun, chances are she will too.”

          “And if she says no?” Noah looks more vulnerable now with those sad, yet hopeful, eyes and lower lip tucked between his teeth. Bucky thinks back to the past three weekends, sitting with Trina and Noah at this table, enjoying his role as third wheel since he got to see young love bloom for the first time. Watching them look at each other when the other wasn’t looking, the sharing of a dessert that was much too casual, and more than that, the way they work seamlessly together in every task, finishing each other’s sentences and handing something to the other without prompting. There’s still a trace of romance in Bucky’s cold old heart.

          “She won’t.” This time when Noah flushes, he grins with it, and Bucky can’t help but smile back.

 

*~*~*

 

          The house is a two story, with a sweet front porch painted a chipping light green and the panels lining the outside walls a deep sailboat blue. The door is white, in perfect condition, with a little American flag hanging on it. Two windows line the front wall, lacy curtains covering the view, with four windows above the porch roof, the same linens there too. A matching set of a rocking chairs sit on the porch with a small table between them, inviting any onlooker to just take a seat and relax for a while.

          It’s cozy, homey, Bucky thinks. He can distinctly remember a night out on the fire escape of his parents’ apartment, Becca’s head resting on his shoulder as they smoked, and listening to her dream on and on in vivid detail of a sweet place just like this where she’d raise her two little boys. James and Steve, they’d be called, but that was just to humor him. It’s strange to see a dream so realistically depicted, especially considering the nature of his own dreams, but Becca always got what she wanted, and she wanted a two-story house in the suburbs.

          It’s daunting despite the comfortable air to it, but still Bucky takes the necessary steps forward on the stone path until he reaches the green porch steps, and takes those too. He finds himself facing a pristine white door, a brass knocker placed just above the flag, and is frozen. What will Becca think when she opens the door to see the face of her long dead brother, frozen in time?

          Bucky knocks.

          Quiet shuffling comes from inside, then equally silent steps as sock-clad feet make their way to the door. They’re slow, creaky steps and Bucky knows it’s her. Knows it’s his little sister, little Rebecca Barnes, the baby who kept him up at night and the woman who walked like the world was hers to rule. His baby sister, his queen, one of the four girls Bucky loved most in the world. The door opens and it’s her, it’s Becca’s face, wrinkled and aged, but still regal and beautiful all the same. Her mouth falls open in shock, her hand half coming up to cover it, before she closes it quickly and drops her hand.

          “Bucky.” Her voice comes out choked. “Come-come in.” He steps into the dream house, looking around. Pictures line every free surface, frames varying in size and color and design, but each one placed neatly next to another. An open kitchen holds a small dining table, covered in a blue tablecloth, but another doorway reveals a formal dining room Bucky can imagine Thanksgivings in. He follows his sister to her dining room table, sitting down as she directs him to as she flits around the kitchen. When she sets down a steaming cup of coffee in front of him, he smiles. “Oh lordy.”

          Bucky looks up in alarm, but she’s just shaking her head with a smile.

          “You still take it with a disgusting amount of sugar, don’t you?” He nods and smiles again tentatively. She sighs and sits down across from him. “If you’re wondering why I’m not screaming my head off about a ghost, it’s ‘cause Steve visited me and told me what happened. I think he told the others too.”

          “Others?” He could only find Rebecca’s name when he searched, fearing the worst for the two youngest. Becca smiles, taking a sip of her own drink.

          “Rosie’s out in Old Brookville, married rich, and lives in a huge house. We go there at Christmas. Jenny’s in Syosset, lives with her oldest son.” The infamous Jenny Barnes settled down with kids?

          “Who was finally good enough for you three?” Bucky asks, curious. Becca laughs.

          “Still my big brother, then, I guess.” She says it with a trace of delightful surprise in her voice and a glint of wistfulness in her eyes.

          “Were you expecting differently?” He takes another sip of his coffee; it’s made really well, strong but with little grounds, he can tell. Just like before the war.

          “When Steve told me what happened, he warned me that you might not remember me or even yourself. I guess he was wrong.” He shakes his head as she takes a sip of her own coffee.

          “He wasn’t. I hardly remembered anything those first couple of days.” Becca frowns, her wrinkles deepening even more. Putting down the cup, she reaches over and lays a veiny hand over his.

          “What did they do to you, Bucky?” Bucky just shakes his head again. He can’t tell her that her big brother was broken over and over again until he was enough of a hollow shell to stuff something else inside. Becca sighs, as if reading his mind. “It would break my heart, wouldn’t it?” He only hesitates a moment before nodding. “Well, I’ll just leave it then. How are you?”

          “Better.” Because “good” is a stretch. “I’m living in Oyster Bay. I babysit for a woman downstairs. I have a daily breakfast meet with the high school kid who works at the diner across the street from me. I have friends my own age who work at the library.” Becca smiles, eyes crinkling.

          “And by your age you mean…?” Bucky nods.

          “Senior citizens.” She laughs brightly, the same one from all those years ago. Her eyes soften as she calms down, grinning at Bucky with a tenderness they only reserved for their fire escape sessions.

          “And the memories?” There’s a forced casualness in her tone that Bucky understands completely. Getting back her brother only to have him not remember her would be worse than leaving him dead, he thinks.

          “They’re all there, I think,” he says slowly, spinning his cup on the table. “But it’s hard for me to access them without a trigger. Babysitting helped me remember a lot about you girls.” Becca nods, watching him shift in his seat. He knows he’s made progress, but not enough, not good enough to go back to Steve yet. He needs to be patched up before he goes home to Steve, otherwise Steve will try to fix him and hurt himself in the process. But now that he thinks about, he’s wondering if he was fixed up enough to come here. Noticing his fidgeting, Becca changes the subject. She still knows him best, even after all these years.

          “We all got married, the three of us,” she says without prompting. “If you found me only, it’s because I kept Barnes when I got married.” Bucky’s eyebrows go up. “After we thought you died, I wanted to carry on our name, and the sweetheart I married let me call our children Barnes as well. William was his name, William Hatch.” She glances over wistfully at one of the picture frames. “Been gone 13 years now and not a day goes by that I don’t miss him.”

          “Kids?” Bucky asks after letting her drift into the past for a few seconds. His voice is a little heavy at the thought, but he wants to know, needs to know if she got what she wanted out of life. Becca grins easily again.

          “Two kids, a boy and a girl, James and Stevie.” Bucky looks up, surprised, and Becca rolls her eyes. “Don’t look so surprised. I told you I was gonna name my kids after you two, didn’t I?” Bucky nods, smiling. “Three grandkids, Spencer, Rebecca, and Shane, and then one great grandchild, Jacey, and another one on the way.”

          “Wow.” Bucky’s mind races with the idea of his little sisters having great grandkids. They’ve all lived their lives without him, while he was a prisoner inside his own mind. He could get bitter, but all it makes him feel is a rush of joy. His sisters lived, God dammit, Hydra can’t do anything to take that away.

          “Wait until you meet them all.” Becca rolls her eyes. “One of Jenny’s had four kids, _four_ , and named ‘um just like us. A girl and then three boys, J-R-J-R names too.”

          “How many are there?” The thought of meeting so many people is daunting, but his desire to meet his nephews and nieces is greater than that.

          “Oh, too many to count. I had two, Jenny had three, and Rosie had two. All of them had more, but only Spencer and Jenny’s Alayna have given us great grands.” Then she gets this excited grin on her face. “Actually, we’re having a Fourth of July picnic at Rosie’s in a couple of weeks. You should come.”

          “Does everyone know? About me?” he asks, playing with his cup again.

          “The ones over 15 do; we explained what happened and everything. It isn’t much of a stretch after Steve.” She stands up and begins to rummage through a drawer. “A lot of them have been dying to meet you; they grew up on stories of you.”

          “What?” Bucky adored his sisters, still does, but never had he thought it was reciprocated as strongly. He was always over-protective, none of them liked it, even Rosie would get annoyed. Had they really told their kids stories about him?

          “Bucky Barnes, you don’t know how much we love you, do you?” He looks up to see an incredulous look on Becca’s face. “We looked up to you, so much. There was not a person we loved more than you in the world.” She sits back down at the table, a pad of paper and a pencil in her hand. “When you died, we-we were broken for a really long time. I was only pulled out of it when William came along.” She looks him straight in the eye, past his walls, and into the core of him. “Steve might have been Captain America, but you were our hero.”

          Bucky’s still not very good at identifying or expressing his feelings, so he just smiles with a quiet “Thank you”.

          “Now,” Becca clears her throat of the sincerity. “I’m gonna draw you a family tree so you know everyone’s names for the party.” They go through every last Barnes/other-last-name-from-the-men-who-married-in and Becca was right; there are too many to count. At the end, the total comes to seven kids, thirteen grandkids, and two grandchildren with a third on the way. There’s one James, one Steven, one Stevie, two Jamie’s, a Winifred, a Rebecca, and a Rosemary as far as namesakes go, and Bucky laughs out loud at the Jamie’s. They’re both girls, one of them Rosie’s kid and one of them Jenny’s grandkid.

          Finally, it’s getting late enough that Becca’s starting to tire and Bucky should be getting home. They’ve been talking for hours, almost like it’s old times once again. Talking to someone who knows him and what he’s done, and better yet doesn’t hate him for what he’s done, is making him feel exponentially better. He forgot how much talking helps with stuff. Before the war, he’d tell Steve everything, never letting anything fester inside him to rip apart his insides. After being captured by Zola the first time, though, he kept things inside, and he can remember it being one of the worst times in his life (not counting his stint as a brainwashed assassin, of course).

          It’s time to leave, but Bucky has one last question.

          “What’s the Fourth of July celebrating?” He now knows this is the big date he was aware of before he could really remember. But he still doesn’t know what it’s about. Becca frowns a little at him.

          “It’s…” She looks hesitant for a moment. “It’s the anniversary of the United States’ independence.” And just like that’s everything’s rushing back at him.

          “Wow.” Steve’s small face looks up into the sky with awe, red and blue flashes of colors lighting up his face. It’s his 12th birthday and Bucky had to get up at 3 in morning to sell papers for the past two months to make enough money for the train ride down here, but oh, is it worth it. He looks happier than Bucky’s seen him in a long time; this winter was a hard one and the effects of that sickness had lasted all through spring. Finally, finally he’s up for seeing the fireworks, just in time for his birthday.

          Steve turns, catching Bucky staring at him, and flushes a pretty pink color.

          “What’re you lookin’ at?” Bucky grins.

          “Happy Birthday, Stevie.” Steve shoves at him, then stays leaning into him as he looks back at the fireworks.

          “Thanks for doin’ this Buck,” he says quietly, almost unable to be heard over the boom of the fireworks. “The ice cream, the train ride, the fireworks. It’s too much.”

          “Nothin’s too good for my Stevie.” Bucky ruffles his hair, but it’s more like a caress than a friendly touch. Steve smiles, but keeps his eyes on the fireworks. Every year, from the roof of Bucky’s building, they watch these same fireworks. But this year, they’re watching them shoot up from just 100 feet away on the beach, sand in their trousers as they relax against one another under a pier. Until last year, Bucky could convince Steve that the fireworks were only for him, for his birthday, but last year Steve didn’t believe him. Said he was too big to believe it anymore. Despite that, it’s not going keep him from trying again now. “Enjoy ‘um,” he says as a red circle explodes in the sky, “they’re just for you.”

          “No they’re not, Buck, stop sayin’ that.” His voice is annoyed, but his eyes still shine with the colors in the sky.

          “M’not lyin’,” Bucky insists, eyes going back to the display. “If they’re not, they should be. You deserve fireworks.” He turns to look back at Steve only to find him looking back at him. “You deserve everything.” Steve smiles softly like he knows how much Bucky means it, and squeezes his arms around Bucky’s middle.

          “I’ve already got you.” Bucky positively beams, his love for Steve hitting him so fast it knocks the breath out of him. Instead of trying to figure out what kind of love it is, they both turn back to the fireworks, Steve’s hands clasped sideways around Bucky’s waist and Bucky’s left arm slung around Steve’s middle. There’s sand everywhere, but neither boy could care any less.

          “It’s Steve’s birthday, too,” Bucky gasps back into the present. Becca smiles, her eyes a little sad now that she sees firsthand that he’s not completely okay.

          “Yeah, he turns 97 this year. Making you 98 now.” It suddenly hits Bucky that he doesn’t know his own birthday.

          “When’s mine?” he asks. Becca’s eyes get even sadder.

          “March 10th, 1917.” Bucky nods filing away that information before, meeting Becca’s gaze.

          “Thank you, for this. It’s nice to talk to someone who knows.” Becca squeezes his arm, the right one.

          “Anytime you want to come, just walk on over, you hear?” Bucky nods with a small smile.

          “I will.”

 

*~*~*

 

          The park is a really nice place, Bucky notes. There are various sports fields, including baseball, and not one but _three_ different playgrounds for children. Various paved paths provide lovely bike trails and there’s a wonderful view of the Bay from a short brick wall on the far side of the grounds. A child’s birthday party is happening over by the third playground and it even has an inflatable slide that the kids are enjoying immensely, if their shrieks of laughter are anything to go by. A barbeque also from the party makes Bucky’s stomach rumble and prompts him to toy with the idea of cooking his own meal for the umpteenth time in the past month.

          He continues his walk, uncomfortably warm under his jacket, until he reaches the baseball fields. The one closest to him has a game going on, not serious or anything, but a group of friends playing. Ages range from teenage to a late twenties-early thirties. None of them are wearing the proper attire; the most suitable is a t-shirt and shorts, but the shorts don’t seem to leave much room for movement. Bucky finds himself watching the friendly game, memories of him and Steve, playing in the streets with a couple other guys who didn’t mind Steve being slower than them, floating past his eyes. Steve was good, even with his health issues, and Bucky idly wonders if he’s played since getting the serum.

          “Hey!” Bucky looks up in alarm to see one of the players, a shorter guy with his blond hair pushed off his forehead, calling to him. He’s got a grin on his face, so Bucky doesn’t think he’s angry, but the reason he’s calling to Bucky is still undetermined. “You wanna play, man?”

          “Uh.” Bucky’s at a loss for words. The man takes it as a yes.

          “Righty or lefty? We’ve got both mitts.”

          Bucky chokes out “Righty”, gets tossed a beat up brown baseball glove, and finds himself stumbling to a position in outfield. Sometimes Bucky doesn’t know how he gets himself into these situations. First he gets a slightly lost high school spaz virtually attached to him after one morning of eating at the kid’s diner, then he befriends the elderly biracial librarian couple after being confused about how to make an email, and finally he ends up watching two toddlers every Saturday because he happened to save one from tumbling down the stairs. What is his life?

          _Let’s not open that can of worms_ , _Buck_.

          He’s good, muscle memory coming back to him, and for once it’s a pleasant experience. Usually it’s with guns or knives, but a mitt, well, a mitt is welcomed. He catches both of two of the balls that come his way, ending the inning, and they switch to batting. After a home run, the guy who originally asked him to join claps him on the shoulder with a big grin.

          “Knew I’d win with you on my team.”

Bucky decides not to question the truly improbable statement.

The game continues on for another hour, Bucky working up a sweat under his jacket, but enjoying using up his energy. Memories pass by with every throw, hit, and run. Learning the game from his Dad, going to games with him and Steve (who his dad kind of adopted as his own son), listening to games on the radio with Steve when he was too sick to go. Baseball was a huge part of his life, one of his favorite hobbies along with reading comic books and science fiction. When the game ends, some of the people leave, including the guy who invited Bucky, and he feels weird leaving without saying anything but also very awkward staying.

          He’s debating if he should just walk away when his eyes catch on a pair of girls a few feet away from him who had been playing. One girl, the blonde one who was on the same team as him, has the right side of her head shaved and the rest of her hair falling over the left side of her head. She’s got a fierce look to her, kind of like Steve used to, but a posture that reads insecurity just the tiniest bit. The other girl, who was on the other team, is a brunette with long, long hair and bangs. She’s most likely Hispanic with a sweet air to her in her light pink shirt. She’s delicate, while the other girl is loud, and together they make a lovely, contradictory couple. What catches Bucky’s attention, though, is their clasped hands. The fierce girl is leaning heavily into the delicate one in a pointedly not-just-friendly way and between them are their hands, intertwined in a way that connects them more than just physically.

          It’s almost like they’re… together. Like he and Steve were. But that’s bad, isn’t it? That’s why Bucky had to go out with girls all the time, so people wouldn’t think he and Steve were what they were. Boys kissing boys and girls kissing girls is bad. Not that he ever understood why, just that everyone said it was and he wasn’t in any place to disagree. He can remember, after Steve got the serum, wondering if Steve had been cured of the perversion they shared, but when he still loved Bucky the same way, they both decided liking guys was a part of them, not some faulty wiring or any of the other bull people preached.

          But here these two girls are, out in public, showing each other open affection. He wants to tell them to stop, that they’ll get hurt, but they don’t seem afraid. A flash of a memory hits him, of walking quickly past an alley as someone got beaten within an inch of his life. The men doing it kept muttering harsh words, _queer, fairy, mistake_ , and Bucky kept walking, had sped up actually, because he couldn’t get involved without making himself a target. That night he held Steve tighter and tried to force the sounds of the guy’s screams from his head. He’s going to look away from the two girls, pretend he never saw anything, when the blonde one looks up, her fierce blue eyes landing on him and narrowing. She takes three big steps towards him, the other girl’s hand still in hers so she’s pulled along, and glares at him.

          “What’re you looking at?” she asks angrily. Bucky shakes his head, a little frightened despite the fact that he has three knives and a gun on him (see, he _is_ getting better).

          “N-Nothing,” he stutters out. The girl considers him for a moment and then nods hard.

          “Damn right you’re not.” Her tone is still angry and Bucky doesn’t understand why. It’s completely different from how someone would react back in his time. Someone caught with a person of the same gender would be timid and try to deny it, not get all up in the witness’s face. What’s Bucky missing? The other girl, the brunette one, looks sheepish and a little shy as she sends Bucky an apologetic glance. Not timid like she thinks she’s going to be hurt, but embarrassed for her (girl?)friend’s attitude. Even though the conversation seems to be over with, they continue to stand in front of Bucky, one sheepish and one seething. As he stands there, shifting his weight from foot to foot, he gathers up the courage to ask them the most prominent question on his mind.

          “Are you-” He pauses, looking from the shy girl’s attentive gaze to the other’s heated one. “Are you two together?” he finally gets out. The fierce one just gets angrier while the brunette frowns a little in confusion at the pure curiosity in Bucky’s voice.

          “Yeah, you got something to say about it?” The angry girl is acting like Bucky’s offending her, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he wants to make it clear somehow that he’s not judging them. He’s just concerned for them, curious about what’s going on, and mostly, extremely terrified that what happened in his memory will happen again, but this time, to these two girls. Instead of explaining any of this, what comes out is;

          “And you’re-” He looks to the brunette. “You’re safe?” He looks around them pointedly, to show he means safe in public. The fierce girl looks confused, eyebrows furrowing at him, but the timid one’s eyes soften; she understands somehow.

          “Yeah, no one’s gonna hurt us,” she says softly, her voice like a feather. “People can be with who they love wherever they want.” Then she smiles, crinkling the skin around her eyes. “There are, of course, the few idiots who disagree, but the majority of people are on our side.” Bucky takes in the information, processes it, and then files it away with the information he filed of Evie and Charlie’s relationship. He smiles at the girl, delighted.

          “That’s good.” She nods, smiling wide enough that she almost closes her eyes.

          “It is.” The blonde girl clears her throat, interrupting their smiling at one another, and they both look at her.

          “So you’re not homophobic?” She’s turning red, starting at her neck and creeping up to the tops of her ears. He furrows his eyebrows, not understanding.

          “What does that mean?” She gets even redder. The girls, Natalia (the brunette one) and Alyssa (the blonde one), explain a few basic things about the current opinions towards gay people, as they’re called now. He even learns new terms, like bisexual, which he thinks applies to him, and even what words aren’t accepted anymore. It’s a lot of information, but not nearly enough, so he decides to do a research session that night to learn more. They give him their phone numbers even after he insists he doesn’t have a phone and he goes home with a smile on his face.

          Another thing the modern world has pleasantly surprised him with. A black man and a white woman can be together, two girls or two guys can be public about their relationships. Things for love have gotten better and it makes him happy for himself and countless other people like him.

          And if he’s thinking about how he and Steve could hold hands on the streets now, it’s only natural. Really.

 

*~*~*

 

          Yesterday, Bucky decides over his morning coffee, was a bad day. Every one of the memories he was given, dumped over his head like a box of old, grisly photographs, was from the past seventy years. Usually, if he gets flashes of bad memories, some good ones will follow them, just to balance it out, but yesterday was an endless torrent of mission after beating after blinding pain. It was akin to torture, and he knows all too much about that.

          He woke up after being brutally beaten for questioning an order and then being wiped so it wouldn’t happen again. It left him in a cold sweat, shaking in his skin, as the ones with wiping are always the worst. Usually those are normal, though, so he didn’t think much of it, until he saw a headline about Iron Man on the early morning news. He had painful flashbacks of a car, making sure the injuries were logical for a crash, and the desperate begging of a man who called him Sergeant and Sorry in equal measure.

          “ _I’m so sorry, Sergeant. We should’ve looked for you, we should’ve… Sergeant, oh Barnes, I’m so sorry._ ”

          Those were Howard’s last words.

          By that time he was breaking apart inside, the only thing holding him together was his skin, and even that was stretching thin. He didn’t feel like going out, but Noah would get worried and Bucky had no way of contacting him to tell him he wouldn’t be in. So he went, and the second he picked up his butter knife he had flashes of silver, red, and a man pleading for his son’s life. Bucky left soon after that.

          The rest of the day was spent on his couch, curled in on himself as he read the seventh book on his list, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. Every hour, or even every half hour, another memory would come back to him. A flash of a date, an image of a dinky basement where he was kept, and a horrible death at his own hands. It was this same cycle, over and over again, the place might’ve changed but the death and the blood and the guns never stopped. So many dark thoughts overtook his brain, crawling into the spots he’s carved out for himself, extinguishing any tiny piece of light that could possibly offer him comfort. It felt like he was losing all of his progress, like the last two months were all for nothing, and he ended up trying to sleep it away.

          He doesn’t know what possessed him of this idea; dreams always make things worse. But last night, he got his first ever good memory as a dream, and it came in the form of shining gold, small Steve Rogers. It was just him and Steve, sitting in the bed of their old apartment, the one with the leaky roof, chest to back, skin to skin, as Bucky read and Steve sketched. He can’t remember the book or the picture Steve’s pencil was sketching, but he can remember feeling so warm and loved that his heart was fit to burst. The phantom feelings and remembrance of warm skin melted away the ice of the day before.

          It was almost like his brain was saying, _Yes, there will be bad days, but they will end and good days will follow. You need both to fix yourself completely_. Now here he is, sitting on his couch and continuing his book with the news on low, more like a murmured chatter than actual noise. He has found out that he doesn’t like silence; it’s too much like the deadly quiet of a mission. With noise, it’s like listening to Steve’s mumblings as he sketched or the words whispered in sleep when Bucky stayed up just to listen.

          Outside is still dark, even though it’s morning; despite his nice dream, he woke up at 2:00 after going to sleep so early last night. This time of day provides little to watch that isn’t an infomercial or crap talk show, so he lets himself fall into the world of hobbits, letting another reality take hold just for a short while. By the time 4 comes around, he’s only a little shaky from yesterday and prepared for a social interaction with his current favorite spastic teen. The day before yesterday, a semi-good day, Noah told him what happened with Trina, and that they’re set for a date this Friday night. Bucky gave him praise, but hid his true excited feelings just to keep up appearances. Then Noah told him every detail of his plan for the date, like the nerd he is.

          The kid’s got some moves, Bucky acquiesced after hearing the plans for the outing. Noah’s going to take out his uncle’s boat, a small catamaran, and they’re going to have a picnic on the water. He told Noah to make sure Trina doesn’t get sea sick, which she doesn’t, but other than that, he thought the plan was flawless and told Noah as much. A little cheesy, perhaps, but achingly sincere, just like Noah himself.

          Thinking about Noah makes Bucky long for someone to talk to, as yesterday was extremely lonely, so he leaves the apartment, in his heavy jacket, already dying from the heat. It’s supposed to reach 80 degrees today. After breakfast he’s decided to go the library, where there’s AC, so he won’t die of heat stroke. The diner bell rings as he pushes open the door and Noah sits up, almost gopher-like, from his slouched position at the counter. The first words out of his mouth are

          “Dude, how are you still wearing that jacket? It’s like 80 degrees out.” Bucky shrugs uncomfortably.

          “Used to it, I guess.” But the truth is he’s not. Sure, the biting cold brings up painful, awful memories of a metal tank he called home for seventy years, but the heat is too contrary to that, too extreme like the cold, and it also brings up memories he’d rather forget. Noah frowns deeply at him, like he knows something’s off, which is strange because Bucky has said enough off things the past two months to cause alarm, but only now does Noah notice. Maybe it’s Bucky’s obvious discomfort; the big hearted kid can’t bear to see him like this.

          “What’s wrong, Bucky?” he asks, eyes stern like he won’t take no for an answer even though Bucky knows he would. If Bucky refused to answer, Noah wouldn’t push, but Bucky has a strange feeling that Noah won’t run if he takes off his coat right now. He’ll eventually have to learn how to go out in public without covering it, so maybe trying it out in front of a friend would be a good way to ease himself into it. He glances at the window of the diner, knowing someone could walk by and see, but it’s early enough that the streets are bare, so Bucky takes his chances.

          “Don’t freak out,” he says to prepare the kid as he begins to slide off his jacket. He does both arms at the same time, Noah’s eyes going first to his right one and then to his left. His eyes widen when they catch on the metal plating coming out from the sleeve of Bucky’s black t-shirt.

          “Whoa,” Noah breathes out, gaze dragging from the hem of the sleeve down to each solitary digit, which curl at the attention. He makes to take a step forward and pauses, eyes flitting to Bucky’s as if asking permission. It’s been such a long time since someone has _asked consent_ to get close to him that all Bucky can do is nod. Noah stumbles forward, true to character, and reaches out reverent fingers to run over the lip of one of the metal plates. They move in response and Noah pulls back at the surprise.

          “It just does that sometimes,” Bucky tells him, voice gruffer than it has been in a while. “Recalibrating.” Noah’s saucer sized eyes meet Bucky’s once again, mouth moving without speaking as he tries to come up with some words.

          “What-” He swallows hard. “What happened?” Bucky tries to think up a suitable half-truth.

          “I was in the army.” Which is true “And I fell.” Which is also true. His eyes glance down at his own metal arm, uncurling the gloved fingers. “I’ve only had it a year.” This is where the half part comes in. “So I’m not used to having other people see it. The jacket’s a pain, but it’s necessary.”

          Noah’s quiet for a while, brain working behind his eyes as some things begin to make sense to him.

          “Is this why you had to leave Brooklyn?” He gestures towards the arm, eyes sad when they meet Bucky’s. Bucky shakes his head.

          “Get me some French toast with blueberry sauce and some orange juice and I’ll tell you the story.” Noah nods, smiling hesitantly, and scurries off to the kitchen. Bucky sighs, bringing his jacket over to his regular seat and draping it over that back. Even though he can’t really feel the metal hand heat up, he takes off the glove too. No reason to have it on now anyway. Noah returns with Bucky’s orange juice, sitting almost patiently in his seat if it wasn’t for his bouncing knee. He watches Bucky take a sip, clear his throat, and lean his elbows on the table in preparation for his mostly-true story.

          The tale Bucky weaves is similar enough to what actually happened but with key details changed for obvious reason. He tells Noah that he joined the army when he was 21 (true) and was sent to some small islands where the US presence was needed (true; the Pacific was where Bucky saw his first action). He did some things, got himself promoted to sergeant (true) and then was sent off towards Afghanistan for combat (partially true; it was really Europe). After being captured by the enemy, he was a POW for a month or so (true) before a rescue op saved him and the rest of the POWs in the compound (sort of true; it was one person, Steve).

          He joined a specialty group after that, one that went on specific missions instead of warfare, but that it was classified and Bucky can’t tell Noah much (the Howling Commandoes). He did that for about a year before his accident (true). During a mission in Northern Europe, he fell from a moving train and lost the lower half of his arm (true). About two weeks into his rehab, he applied for a prosthetic, and because of his specialty, received the unique one he has now (untrue; it was a month after his accident, he had no say, and he got the arm before he even had his current specialty). When he had finished rehab, he went back to Brooklyn, where he grew up, but had to leave because someone from his past was making trouble for him (partially true; Steve made no trouble, but Bucky couldn’t stay there with him).

Noah listens on with avid fascination, wincing at certain parts, and looking genuinely intrigued the entire time.

          “Wow,” he breathes out when Bucky finishes his story. “Man, I never knew you were a vet. Do you-” Noah bites at his lip. “Do you have any family in the area? ‘Cause if not, you could spend The Fourth with me and my mom. She makes really good potato salad.” Bucky smiles at the kid’s goofy grin.

          “I have three sisters on the island. I’ll be visiting them.” Noah nods slowly, eventually tapering off as his eyes go far away.

          “Thanks,” he eventually says, voice kind of quietly reverent. “Thanks for fighting for us.” Bucky shrugs, swallowing his French toast.

          “No big deal.” Noah opens his mouth to argue, but Bucky cuts him off. “So did your uncle say you could have the boat?” Noah gives him a look, lips pursed and eyes suspicious, so he knows exactly what Bucky’s trying to do. Despite that, he launches into his most recent update on his date with Trina.

          Bucky might be more than a little attached to his strange teenage friend.

 

*~*~*

 

          It’s craft day at the Oyster Bay Public Library. This is a fun day where any parent can bring in their child, leave them in the main playing room, and read dirty novels over in the corner while their kids glue together construction paper to make an American flag. Sounds great, right?

          Wrong. This is not great, at least not for one poor Bucky Barnes, whose designated reading area is just a few feet too close to the main children’s playing area. The shrieks of giggles and occasional tearful breakdowns are too much to handle today, so Bucky is unceremoniously thrust from his comfy armchair and into the bowels of the library to find another spot to read. It is not a welcomed endeavor.

          He just passed the last row of fiction and is stepping into the bland, almost never visited home of non-fiction when he sees the library’s newest display. It’s at the end of a row of biographies, on the far side of the non-fiction section that gets enough foot traffic because the thriller books are its neighbor. The table is full of red, white, and blue covered books, each one advertising a picture, a drawing, or the shield of Captain America. There is a display set up for Steve at Bucky’s local library.

          Bucky is vaguely aware that the public had taken to Steve and his persona very well after he went into the ice, enough to make movies, documentaries, and biographies about his life. He hadn’t been looking for it, though; he stumbled upon the phenomenon when Noah lent him the apparent “best” movie of many they made about Steve. Bucky got halfway through it before turning it off. The inaccuracies were numerous; Peggy was made into a secretary who Steve fell in love with in a day, Red Skull looked more like those Teletubby things Bucky’s seen nowadays than an actual person, and Steve had been a perfect little goody two shoes while Bucky was the bad influence who got into fights all the time. _Ha!_

          Somehow expecting the biographies to be more accurate, Bucky picks up one of the black and white books with Steve’s face on it, behind him the Howling Commandoes. Thumbing through it, Bucky learns that this one is more about the whole group than just Steve, though not too focused on the missions they completed, as those are probably still classified. There’s a chapter about inclusion and the adversity they faced at having such a mixed group; a black man, a Japanese man, a French soldier, a British one. Steve was never known to take the easy way out, Bucky smiles to himself.

          Truly, Steve chose them because of their bond from being prisoners together on top of their individual skills. Monty had a record as long as his arm of rescue ops, Dugan knew what to do with any gun you put in his hands, Gabe’s ability to translate on top of his extensive knowledge of the European terrain and battle strategies, Frenchie’s explosive work, Morita’s stealth and medical expertise. As a group, they were pretty unstoppable, add a super-soldier and one of the best snipers in the US army at the time, and you’ve got one hell of a team.

          The one person Steve never really read up on back when he was picking soldiers was Bucky. He probably assumed he didn’t need to, considering they had known each other all their lives, but if he did, Steve would’ve seen just how great Bucky was at being a soldier. Bucky can remember hating it, hating war and killing men who were somebody’s something. Husbands, fathers, sons, brothers; countless ones died because of Bucky’s decision to squeeze a trigger. But damn, was he good at it.

          He tried to keep his skill a secret; he didn’t want to be promoted to operations that would make it even harder to sleep at night. So he made the shots he needed to make, only let out his deadly skill when one of his own were on the line, and did a job he hated because he had someone back home he’d kill and die for in a heartbeat.

          The memories hitting Bucky now, along with the intense feelings of hate and misery, are on the same level as the ones from during his stint as the Winter Soldier. The things he did as a soldier might not be as bad as the things he did as The Soldier, but he _chose_ to shoot those people, _chose_ to join the army. He can’t tell which is worse. Thankfully, he’s saved from that debate by Charlie walking over, tell-tale off-rhythm steps giving him away.

          “Oh, found our newest display, have you?” Charlie asks with a wide grin. “Reading up on your namesake?” Bucky looks down at the book in his hands and nods, discreetly covering his picture on the front cover.

          “Wanted to read about what he did. Sounds like a pretty cool guy.” Charlie finally stops in front of the table, using it as a support to stand. “Were you a big Cap fan when you were young?” Charlie laughs, the wrinkles around his eyes getting deeper.

          “I was, I was; every year on my birthday, I’d get another trading card. I remember on my, I think it was 8th birthday, I got Gabe Jones. He was my favorite of the Howlies.” His laughter calms into a soft smile, genuine and warm.

“Not Bucky Barnes?” Bucky asks, surprised at the joking tone in his voce. Charlie just shakes his head, eyes twinkling at the joke.

“Sergeant Barnes was great, sure, but at the time, the only real role models I had were civil rights activists. Gabe Jones was the only one who was a regular guy that just happened to get a job like that. It made things seem... I don’t know. Like maybe one day things would be easy like that.” Charlie’s eyes go far away like Bucky’s usually do. Bucky just let’s him go wherever he is in the past. Eventually, Charlie shakes his head of the memories and smiles. “Learn anything interesting?” He nods at the book. Bucky shrugs.

“Nothing I didn’t already know.” He puts the book back down on the table, cover facing away from Charlie.

“Let me see, I might have something for you.” Charlie pauses, thinking. He snaps his fingers, eyes twinkling, when he finds an interesting fact about Captain America. “I bet you didn’t know that the Howlies travelled around after Cap went into the ice.” Bucky’s eyebrows go up.

“Really?” Charlie nods, a kind of pride in his expression at coming up with some new information.

“Went to schools and town halls and stuff. Talked about the war, civil rights, all sorts of things. They came to my school when I was, I think, about eleven years old.” Bucky is actually surprised at that. He tries to picture the group of smelly, obscene men who he marched with around Europe sitting in front of elementary school kids and telling them about the war. The image that he gets is so ridiculous he laughs out loud. Charlie, who has no idea where the laughter is coming from but appreciates it nonetheless, smiles.

          “Did you get to meet your hero?” Bucky asks when all that’s left of the laugh are the small lines around his eyes. Charlie shakes his head.

          “No, the line was too long, and school ended before I could. I didn’t even get to ask him a question during the assembly.” His eyes go far away again, and this time, Bucky takes advantage of it.

          “What was it like?” he asks.

          “I can remember it like it was yesterday…”

 

          The auditorium is hot and humid, the almost-summer heat mixed with the sweating bodies of two hundred students and faculty and topped off with not even an air conditioner like Evie says she has in her school. Charlie is shuffled to a seat by Ms. Tunny, shoved in between his neighbor and his cousin. The noise is overwhelming, every kid not being shushed busy whispering furiously to their friends about the possible reason for being here. In the 7 years he’s been going to this school, only once did they have an assembly, and that was to talk about the books in the library being stolen.

          Suddenly, the lights in the auditorium go out, leaving only darkness and a few scared shrieks of the younger kids. The auditorium is more like a large shack than an actual room, so there is some light, but it’s only enough to see a few feet around himself, and Charlie squints as he tries to see the small stage set up in front of the chairs. The lights come back on (they were probably only turned off to get the kids to quiet down) and on stage, sitting around one another in a way only the closest of friends can, are the Howling Commandoes. Charlie’s heart stops and then all of a sudden starts beating way too fast.

          Not thirty feet away sits Gabe Jones, shoving at a laughing Jacques Dernier, and smiling back even though he’s obviously reprimanding his brother in arms.

          “Good afternoon kids,” Charlie’s principal says in his booming voice, cutting through the whispers that have started up again now that the Howlies are visible. Everyone quiets down and responds;

          “Good afternoon Mr. Harrington!” Mr. Harrington gives them a pleased smile from under his mustache.

          “Today we have a special treat.” He turns to the men on stage. “As most of you probably recognize, these are the famous Howling Commandoes.” A chorus of applause and ill-advised cheers explode at their names, and the laughter of the soldiers outranks the stern look Mr. Harrington gives them. “As I was saying,” he says as the kids quiet down. “They’ve very graciously offered to speak to you children today. So you’re going to be on your best behavior and listen to what they have to say.” Everyone becomes instantly silent as Mr. Harrington gives the floor over to the Howling Commandoes.

          Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan clears his throat.

          “We’re gonna start by introducin’ ourselves, since we’re not so vain as to think you already know who we are.” Dugan laughs, as do the other soldiers, but the kids are too busy watching with wide, reverent eyes to respond. Dugan clears his throat again. “I’m Sergeant Timothy Dugan, my friends call me Dum Dum. I served in the 107th Infantry regiment until I joined the Howling Commandoes.” He turns to the next man in line, James Falsworth.      

          “Hello,” he says in a posh accent, one Charlie’s never heard before. “I’m Major James Montgomery Falsworth, but I prefer Monty, and I fought with the 3rd Independent Parachute Brigade before joining the Howling Commandoes.”

          “I’m Private Gabe Jones,” the next man in line says with a grin. The rest of his words are cut off, however, as the entire auditorium erupts into cheers. Mr. Harrington tries to quiet down the kids as the other Howling Commandoes clap Jones on the shoulder with smirking grins on their faces. “Uh,” Gabe Jones laughs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I served in the 107th Infantry Division before joining the Howlies.” More cheers after that, but they quiet down quickly.

          “I am Jacques Dernier,” the man with the mustache says in a heavily accented voice. “I was in the French Resistance before the Howling Commandoes.”

          “And I’m Private Jim Morita,” the last man, an Asian one, says. “I served in the US Army Nisei Squadron before becoming a Howlie.” The kids clap again quickly before falling silent once again. Back and forth, each man says his piece about the war and what it was like, leaving out most of the bad bits on behalf of the children. Eventually, the topic switches over to the “home front”, as they call it, and how the students can do their part for their country. Most of it is about doing well in school and listening to their parents (which the Howlies fail to hide their snorts at) until it’s Gabe’s turn to talk.

          “Look,” he says with a solemn look on his face. “I know a lot of you don’t think you can do the things you want to do because you’re black. You’re right, it’s a lot harder to become a doctor or a teacher or a soldier if you’re not white. But,” he pauses to look around the room, staring into each and every hopeful face with a certainty that can’t be contradicted. “If you get where you want to be, and I promise you, you can, all of the hard work is worth it. You may even pave the way for others, make it easier for them to do the same.”

          It’s quiet for a long minute after that, every kid in the room thinking of their dream and imagining what it would be like to actually do it. Charlie conjures up an image of himself teaching a group of children just like him now all about the wonders of literature.

          “Now.” Mr. Harrington breaks the spell with a clap of his hands. “Does anyone have any questions?” A sea of small, black hands shoot up into the air all at once, making most of the adults in the room laugh. Most of the questions are the run-of-the-mill, usual kid’s questions, like “Did you get to hold a gun?” and “Were the Nazis scary?”, and they go by without a hitch until one little girl raises her hand, hair done up in beautiful intricate braids, wearing a homemade blue dress.

          “Yes, little darlin’?” Dugan asks, smiling at her as he points in her direction. Shyly, she smiles back, before putting on a funnily serious face for such a young girl.

          “Do you miss Cap ‘n Bucky?”

          Every hand in the room slowly falls down, a few of the teachers step forward as if they could stop the question from happening with a stern look, and every one of the Howling Commandoes loses their joking expressions. They exchange looks, Morita’s hand going to Gabe’s shoulder for a squeeze. Finally, Dugan looks back at the little girl, a fragile smile on his face.

          “We all miss them a lot,” he says sincerely. “We’re like brothers, the bunch of us, and it wasn’t any different with Steve and Bucky. Losing them was like losing one of our own, our flesh and blood.” The girl nods solemnly, seeming to know that her question was a little more than a “What kind of food did you eat?” question. “But-” Dugan grins a little wider. “We know that the both of them would be real proud of what we’re doin’ now, and that makes us feel a little better.”

          The girl smiles, satisfied, and the hands go up once again. The rest of the questions go by in a blur, Charlie’s eyes staying on Gabe Jones the whole time. Finally, _finally_ , the school bell rings, and everyone gets out of their seat to rush at the soldiers. Charlie tries to fight his way to the middle, but he’s too nice about it, not liking to elbow people to get his way, and the Howlies leave before he can get the chance to meet his hero. The last picture he has of Private Gabriel Jones is of the rest of the Howling Commandoes all piling on top of him in a hug, Jones’ face split wide in a grin.

 

          “Sounds like they were pretty good guys,” Bucky says as Charlie returns to the present.

          “Hmm?” Charlie looks up, probably not even really listening to what Bucky’s saying. Bucky doesn’t mind a bit. “Oh, oh yeah. Great men.” He nods slowly, looking down at the books. “I kind of wish I’d met him, for real.” All of a sudden he doesn’t sound like the kind, old librarian Bucky’s come to care for; instead he sounds exactly like a kid who never met their idol. Bucky’s heart clenches for little Charlie and how much he _knows_ Gabe would’ve loved him. Charlie shakes his head, regular smile coming up on his face again. “Well, you know what they say; never meet your heroes.”

          “Yeah.” Bucky nods, idly wondering if any of the Howlies are still alive. His sister was a lot to handle, but he knows they don’t have much time left if they’re even still living, and he really wants to see if their lives turned out as good as they should have.

          “You enjoy your books, Bucky. I’ve got A Wrinkle in Time waiting for you up at the counter when you’re ready.” Charlie begins to walk off, favoring his right leg a little bit, pushing a cart of books as he goes.

          Instead of offering to help take the cart, as he knows Charlie will decline, Bucky say, “Thanks, Charlie.” Charlie smiles back at him, not knowing that Bucky means it for a lot more than just the book.

 

*~*~*

 

          Bucky likes cooking.

          It’s not that he expected to hate it, it’s just that he didn’t think he’d like it _this much_. He has a whole bundle of memories about cooking, varying in subject from watching at his Ma’s hip as she used a wooden spoon to stir something on the stove to shoving Steve out of the way as he ruined yet another go at scrambled eggs. The words he hears change from “James Buchanan Barnes, get your fingers outta that bowl!” and into “But Buck, it’s your _birthday_!” and they all make him grin widely.

          Not all of the memories are fully there, most of them just fragments of words, unidentifiable smells, broken recipes that don’t make sense. It’s just like how most of his memories are before he finds a trigger for them. His mind is filled with half-formed pictures, stories he can’t remember the middles of, like a screwed up book with the page numbers ripped out, along with a lot of the lines. It’s hard to read, and when he tries to make sense of it, he gets blinding migraines, but when he finally sees a memory in full, the brightness of the colors and the sharpness of the senses hitting him full force, every twinge of pain is suddenly worth it.

          Cooking brings more full memories than anything else he’s done yet, even more than babysitting. Late nights when his Ma was out and his Dad was working when Bucky would have to make a full meal, his best being spaghetti with the red sauce Ma’s great-grandma from Italy originally made. Early mornings with his Ma, sitting on her hip as she made his Dad’s breakfast before he rushed off to work, always eggs, always sunny-side up with whatever thing that could pass for bread in their house on the side. Lazy afternoons with Steve, who insisted he wasn’t hungry but would never turn his nose up at one of Bucky’s bastardized eggplant parmesans.

          The smells and tastes that come along with the full pictures are amazing too, intriguing and intoxicating, making Bucky want to try those recipes and stay away from them at the same time. He wants to taste it again more than anything, but he doubts he could make it the same way now. That was the fear that kept him from cooking for so long, the fear that Hydra had taken that from him too.

          That first night, when he hesitantly went to the store with a list of ingredients he somehow had kept in his head all these years, he doubted it was going to work at all. Through the boiling of the water, which he thought he would burn, the straining of the pasta, which he knew would somehow go wrong, and the making of the sauce, which was _of course_ going to be under seasoned, he never stopped worrying. He was tense the entire time, and scooping some of the food into a bowl and taking it over to the couch, a show about a mother and a yellow umbrella on mute in the background, was a death march.

          That first tentative bite melted away every last bit of worry in an instant. Suddenly, he wasn’t on the roughed up old couch in his living room; he was in an old dining room, three brown haired, blue eyed little girls at the table with him, taking a bite of his dinner as Rosie asked for more “pamsan” and Bucky’s Ma kissed his Dad on the cheek, welcoming him home from work. Another bite came with another memory, one of him and Becca eating the leftovers from the night before at school, smiling at her from over the heads of a bunch of other eating children to share conspiratorial smiles at knowing they had the best lunch. Bundling Steve up in a blanket as he forced a bowl of spaghetti into his hands, knowing Steve was sick of soup but also knowing his stomach wasn’t ready for anything heavier at the moment.

          Food brings back memories of laughter, of friends and family, and most importantly, of home. Bucky _loves_ cooking.

          Tonight is his first time trying the eggplant parmesan once again. He has half the recipe vividly in his brain, but for the life of him, he can’t remember the last two ingredients, so he had to look that up. Despite that, he’s looking forward to the food he’s cooking and eating it too. The process is nice and slow, Bucky spending a good amount of time making sure he gets the recipe right. It’s easier than he thought it would be, moving around the kitchen like a dance he’s done a hundred times. Holding the knives and using them so well does scare him a bit, but when it’s for slicing eggplants or chopping up herbs, it’s not as bad. Not one memory of slitting someone’s throat comes up, so he counts it as a win.

          When it’s all done, he takes a plate out to the couch, switches the channel to one that’s showing _Friends_ , and takes a bite of the food.

          “Bucky?” Steve calls as he pushes open the door. Bucky can hear the squeaky hinges from the kitchen. He really should try to oil them, but the way he figures it, they’ll hear it if someone tries to rob them.

          “In here!” Bucky calls back, louder than he needs to. Steve doesn’t hear too well in the winter, though, and Bucky just wants to make sure he’s heard. Steve comes padding into the room, tugging off his top two layers of clothing. It’s warmer in the apartment than it is outside, but it’s still too cold to risk just wearing a shirt. Steve’s breathing gets harsher the colder it is, and his rattling lungs still give Bucky mini-heart attacks every time.

          “Smells good,” Steve mumbles, snuggling into Bucky’s back and wrapping his arms around Bucky’s waist. Bucky smiles down at the eggplant when Steve’s nose fits in between his shoulder blades.

          “Eggplant parmesan. Your favorite.” Steve makes a contented hum into Bucky’s shoulder. “Couldn’t get the best eggplants, so it won’t taste too fresh, but the parmesan is the good kind. Robbie at the grocer’s gave me a good price ‘cause he’s sweet on Jenny.” Steve snorts.

          “He knows she won’t give him the time of day, right?” Bucky shrugs, jostling Steve and making him whine in protest.

          “S’not my fault.” Steve’s warm breath against his back as he huffs a laugh makes Bucky grin wider. “C’mon Sleepy, you gotta eat before you can pass out.” Steve groans, but moves when Bucky turns to slide some food onto one of the two plates he got out earlier. Steve grabs two forks from their mess of a utensils drawer and meets Bucky on their couch. They eat slumped together, mumbling about their days, once in a while stealing a bite from the other’s plate even though they’re eating the same exact thing. Steve washes up, insisting it’s only fair, and when he comes back, Bucky shuts his book and follows him into their bedroom.

          He shucks his shirt and trousers, Steve leaves on a long sweater and some soft worn pants, and they both tuck into bed, curling easily around one another. Bucky leans over Steve to turn out the light and gets kissed right on the nose. He smiles down at Steve, who’s got pink cheeks that aren’t from the cold and smiles right back.

          “I love you, Stevie,” Bucky mumbles in a sleepy soft voice. Steve beams, his blue eyes twinkling.

          “I love you too.” The corner of his mouth turns up. “Jerk.”

          Bucky settles back into his couch, taking another bite as Chandler makes a well-timed sarcastic comment, and feels warm from his toes to his fingertips.

 

*~*~*

 

          Noah is literally buzzing out of his skin when Bucky walks in the door. Instead of sleeping on the countertop, he’s bouncing in the chair he usually sits in at Bucky’s regular table, a wide grin on his face as he stares at the door like he’s been looking at it long before Bucky pushed it open. Wary of the kid’s energy, Bucky slowly makes his way over to the table and sits down. He opens his mouth to order his pre-planned meal for the day (eggs benedict with white toast and grapes) when Noah blurts out

          “It was amazing!” Bucky raises his eyebrows. “The date,” Noah clarifies, grinning ear to ear. “It was amazing.”

          “That’s great, kid,” Bucky says, letting himself smile just a bit to let Noah know he means it. Noah nods, a little frantic, but more giddy than crazy.

          “She loved the food I made her, well, my mom made her, I can’t cook for shit.” He snorts. “We talked for like hours about everything at once and nothing at all. I made up names of constellations and made her laugh, made her _laugh_ , Bucky. And-” He bites his lip, cheeks tinting pink. “She kissed me.”

          “Whoa.” Bucky allows himself a grin. “Way to go.”

          “I know, right?” Noah sighs, slumping back against his chair. “ _She_ kissed me. She _kissed_ me. She kissed _me_. It’s so awesome I don’t even know which word to stress.” He’s stupid with it, wearing the dopiest look Bucky’s ever seen on him as his eyes fill with literal hearts, going mushy just at the memory. He wonders if he ever got that look on his face because of Steve, feeling a pang of hurt at not remembering.

          “How was it?” Bucky asks, deciding to hold back on ordering until Noah’s gotten it all out. At Noah’s confused look, Bucky clarifies. “The kiss. How was it?” Noah goes red, looking down at his fingers, fidgeting.

          “I uh, I don’t really have anything to compare it to.” Oh. _Oh_.

          “That was your first kiss?” Bucky doesn’t mean to sound so incredulous, but, well, it’s surprising. The kid’s not bad looking, he’s got a cool personality, great qualities in a teenage kissing partner. It’s just strange to think he hasn’t had someone kiss him before now. Noah nods though, looking like he wants to dissolve into the chair. Bucky instantly feels bad. “Hey, don’t be embarrassed. You got a first kiss that meant a lot to you. It was special. That’s all that matters, really.” Noah looks up, still shy but that excitement from before bubbling just under the surface.

          “What was your first kiss like?” he asks, all hopeful and curious in a way that makes Bucky want to answer despite his better judgement. The truth is, Bucky doesn’t actually know what his first kiss was like. He knows it was a dame, vaguely remembers a blonde girl with curly hair and big front teeth, but besides kissing her under an apple tree because she thought he was cute, he remembers nothing. But, he remembers enough to give Noah something.

          “I had my first kiss when I was thirteen.” He’s guessing because he and the girl were broken up by a frizzy haired lady in pointy glasses who he’s pretty sure was his 8th grade teacher. “I only did it because everybody thought it was cool, and I can’t even remember the girl’s name now.” Noah frowns at that, sitting up, getting that determined look in his eye that makes Bucky both fond and nervous.

          “When did you have your first _real_ kiss then?” This Bucky does remember. He smiles at the memory, Noah’s expression softening a bit when he realizes.

          “I was 16,” he says quietly, knowing this because it was the year he got a job down at the docks; his Ma wouldn’t let him before then. He had just gotten off work and stopped by Steve’s on the way home because he had a present for him he wanted to drop off. A set of fancy pencils he couldn’t really afford, but were an early Christmas present since Steve was bound to get sick between then and Christmas and he would need something to do. Steve argued a little when Bucky gave them to him, insisting it was too much, but eventually gave in, and Bucky sat next to Steve on the couch as Steve finished his sketch of the building next door.

          “We’d been friends for a while at that point,” Bucky continues, trying not to get lost in the memory of it. “And it was getting late. I made some offhand comment about how they should’a been drawin’ me ‘stead of a building.” He uses “they” instead of “he” because even though those girls told him it’s alright nowadays, he doesn’t know how Noah feels about it. He doesn’t want to lose his friend. “They were an artist,” Bucky adds, realizing he left that part out. “It was like any other time; they said no one would draw my ugly mug, I shoved ‘um, and we ended up play-fighting a little. When it was over, we were just laughing so hard we didn’t realize how close we were and they-” He smiles when he remembers the determination in Steve’s eyes, the clumsiness of his lips. “They kissed me.”

          Noah lets him revel for a bit in the memory. It had been Steve’s first kiss and he hadn’t really known what to do, but Bucky hadn’t cared. Steve was kissing him and that was enough to make it the best one he’d ever gotten. Messy and slow and just a little too wet, but perfect too, completely perfect.

          “They, huh?” Noah eventually breaks his reverie, a small smile on his face as he looks at Bucky with a strange tenderness in his expression. Bucky grunts, noncommittal, and glances down at the sugar packets. “I’m guessing this “they” was a guy then?” Bucky shrugs.

          “Yeah.” Noah nods.

          “I don’t care, Bucky. It doesn’t matter to me that you’re gay.” Bucky looks him straight in the eye, assessing, and when he doesn’t see an ounce of falsity in his eyes, he huffs through his nose.

          “I’m bi, but thanks.” Noah beams again and Bucky sighs. “Tell me more about this date. What’d you wear?” And Noah’s off once again.

          Bucky doesn’t get his eggs until about an hour later, but to him, it’s completely worth it.

 

*~*~*

 

          The train is filled with strangers who could possibly be carrying weapons, or even worse, be Hydra, but all Bucky can focus on is the pie in his hands and keeping it from getting messed up. It’s pretty, he thinks, even though the bananas, strawberries, and blueberries are thrown on slightly haphazardly. It looks deliberately messy, which makes it seem more put together than it is, and it smells delicious, so Bucky isn’t worried about the taste.

          No, what Bucky’s worried about are the seven children, thirteen grandchildren, and two and one-on-the-way great grandchildren he’s going to be meeting in- he checks the train clock- less than half an hour. He hasn’t seen Jenny or Rosie yet either, so he’s afraid he won’t live up to their memories, but Becca assured him last night on the phone when he called to confirm he was coming that everyone is very excited and will love him no matter what.

          His eyes travel down to his shoes. Just the other day, he’d been walking further in the direction he’s never been before and he passed a shoe store. In the window was a red pair of shoes with the label Converse on them. What really intrigued him, though, was the Captain America shield on the side of them. He doesn’t know what possessed him to go in and buy them, but he did, and now they grace his feet as the only festive part of him. The long sleeved shirt is grey and his pants are black, so the shoes are his attempt at celebration. He thinks he looks vaguely presentable; he combed his hair so it didn’t look as haggard and he shaved this morning so he doesn’t look homeless. It’s the most thought he’s put into his appearance since breaking his programming.

          The train fumbles in the tracks and Bucky digs his metal fingers into the armrest. He stares out the window unseeing and tries to calm himself down before he has a panic attack. It’s probably just the nerves piling on top of the trigger, but even though he knows that, it doesn’t make it any better. He’d be walking if it wasn’t for the pie. He should’ve just left it at home; no one’s going to want to eat it anyway, who would eat pie made by an ex-brainwashed assassin? And for that matter, who would want to spend their holiday with a killer?

          Oh he never should’ve agreed to this. He could be home right now, curled up with The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe but no, he thought his “family” would like having him because he doesn’t think enough. He finally gets the ability to use his brain and what does he do? Completely disregard common sense! And now he’s saddling his poor not-really-family with his presence on what’s supposed to be a happy day. He never should’ve come, this was a mistake, he should just go home-

          “Next stop, Syosset Train Station.” With a deep breath, Bucky pulls himself out of a would-be panic attack and gets up to wait by the door. He already told Becca he’d come and he’s not going to disappoint his little sister after all these years. He shakes his head of the thoughts, looking out at the town of Syosset. Syosset is the closest station to Old Brookville and apparently Rosie’s sending a car to take him the rest of the way. The train slows to a stop, the noise making Bucky flinch, which despite the shock that caused it, makes him pleased with himself. The Winter Soldier never flinched.

          When he steps onto the platform, there’s a fancy looking man in a coat and tie holding up a sign that reads “Bucky Bear” on it. Whatever’s left of his doubt disappears when he sees the little hearts drawn around the name. This is good, he decides as he stops in front of the man and receives a smile, this is really good.

          The ride takes fifteen minutes, Bucky cataloguing every turn out of habit, and is filled with the idle chatter of the driver. His name’s Gary, he’s just doing this one favor for Mrs. Kensington before he goes into the city to meet his family. They’re having a big feast this year ‘cause Gary’s wife just got a big promotion and their kid got into some special music thing. Bucky replies during the lulls and only half-listens, too preoccupied with thoughts of his own family to be polite. Gary doesn’t seem to mind.

          “Here we are,” Gary says, pulling the town car into a long driveway leading up to a big white house. It’s what Bucky’s younger self would’ve called a mansion, with big white pillars up front and clean elegant steps leading up to a huge front door with an intimidating knocker. Bucky stares up at it for a second too long and Gary clears his throat.

          “Sorry,” Bucky mumbles, stepping out of the door Gary’s holding open for him. He suddenly remembers this is when he should tip the chauffer and realizes he spent all his pocket money on the train ticket. He feels flustered and ridiculous once again, too underdressed and out of place to be at this beautiful estate and be driven around in a shiny black town car. “I, uh, I don’t have money.” Gary just grins a slightly yellowed but sincere grin.

          “Don’t worry about it; Mrs. Kensington has it all covered. You have a Happy Fourth.” Gary waves at Bucky as he slides into the driver’s seat, Bucky waving back hesitantly and watching as the car disappears down the mile long driveway. On the bottom step of the stairs leading up to the large front porch, he turns to face the imposing building. He feels even more intimidated now than he did standing in front of Becca’s cozy two-story. Fortunately for him, he doesn’t have to work up the courage to lift up the big door knocker because it opens suddenly, and a girl with shoulder length brown hair, green eyes, and the same nose Bucky’s ma had is standing in the doorway, grinning ear to ear.

          “Oh my god, it’s you, it’s really you.” Her eyes are wide and her voice is breathless. For a second, Bucky thinks about denying it and turning around to leave. This girl can’t be 100% positive that this random guy outside this (her?) house is her long lost assassin relative. Bucky’s sure a lot of guys show up outside big houses like these… with the some similar facial features… holding pies.

          Only an hour later, as he’s sitting at a humongous dining table with several tall stacks of pancakes atop it and a gaggle of Barnes relatives circled around him, he’s extremely glad he didn’t run.

          The introductions had been a bit confusing, as a lot of the relatives share similar features and whole bunch of them have names that start with the letter “J”. The first one he got to meet was Red, Rebecca’s daughter’s daughter, whose name is also Rebecca but goes by Red. The origin behind the name was vague, but Bucky can remember when Becca wouldn’t leave the house without a red ribbon in her hair and decides not to question it. Red was the one who answered the door, and luckily, Becca showed up to calm him down before he could either run or stutter out an awkward reply to Red’s awestruck introduction.

          They took him straight to the large kitchen, one with beautiful granite counter tops, clean wooden cabinets, and high end finishes. Bucky was extremely impressed, and in between flashes of his old kitchens from the past, he used his recently acquired knowledge from late night HGTV binges to appreciate the high-end room.

          In the beautiful kitchen that made Bucky itch to use it were four people. Standing in front of a large mixing bowl with flour puffing out of it was a man with Barnes blue eyes, messy brown hair, and glasses perched on the end of his long nose. Further down on the counter sat a woman with freckles on her high cheekbones and the same lips Bucky wears wrapped around a wooden spoon as she tasted her food, giggles erupting from the same place. Next to her stood a young man with her forehead, shaking his head as he smiled at their foolishness, who also mixed his own bowl with his own spoon.

          And there, standing at the head of the island, orchestrating the entire thing, was Jenny Barnes, Bucky’s firecracker of a younger sister. When Jenny locked eyes on her big brother, she broke off her commands in the middle of a word and walked over as fast as her creaky legs could carry her. No false hip could hinder the way Jenny Barnes walked; regal like a queen who knew everything she saw was hers to own. She’s walked that way since she was seven years old, spent a whole week practicing it and forced a bed-stricken Steve to help perfect it.

          It had made Bucky’s eyes water as Jenny clasped her hands around his neck and held on for God knows how long. She stuttered out something that was muffled by tears as he hugged her back, Red being a darling and taking the pie from him so he had both arms free. When Jenny finally pulled back, but kept one perfectly-manicured-in-a-shiny-red-lacquer hand curled around his wrist, he was introduced to the others.

          Timothy was the man with the flour, Jenny’s oldest son whom she lived with. The giggling girl with his mouth was Stephanie “Stevie” Barnes, who kept her name after marrying Liam Kelly, and the fond boy next to her was her son, Shane. They continued on with the pancake making, Red joining in, as the siblings caught up on the past seventy years, though it was mostly Bucky doing the catching up.

          After about ten minutes, a few more people stumbled down the stairs. A feisty red head named Felicity who tugged a sleepy Spencer behind her, her pregnant belly suiting her well, about 7 months along, and a two year old girl named Jacey getting a piggy back ride from her half-awake father. Spencer is Becca’s son’s son, so Felicity is a Barnes by marriage, but she’s got the spunk Winifred Barnes used to keep her own husband in line.

          The couple that trickled in after them was Oliver, Jenny’s second son, and his wife, a beautiful dark skinned woman named Gabriella. Their daughter was still sleeping upstairs, so they slumped against one another in the corner of the breakfast nook, hands curled around one mug of coffee. Following them was Steven, Rosie’s son, and Isaac, Steven’s son. Steven didn’t look even a little like Steve, but was the spitting image of George Barnes, Bucky’s Dad, which made Bucky ache with grief for a hot second. His wife must be blonde, though, because Isaac has his father’s face but with mop of curly blond hair on his head.

          The next down were the twins, Alayna and Rhett, who are fraternal but look so similar it’s a little freaky. They’ve both got Jenny’s cheekbones, as they’re her grands, and Timothy’s jawline, since they’re his kids. Both have Barnes blue eyes and the signature brunette hair color with matching noses from, Bucky thinks, Becca. They’re close, it seemed, with the way they leant against one another as they waited for their coffee. Only three minutes after they sat down, though, a rambunctious little Latino boy ran down the hall and hopped into Rhett’s lap, pressing a kiss to Alayna’s cheek. At Bucky’s inquiring eyebrows, Jenny explained that Alayna adopted little Michael after her ex, and Michael’s parent, passed away.

          Next down were Minnie, Gabriella and Ollie’s daughter, and Rosemary, Rosie’s daughter’s daughter. Their elbows were linked as they walked into the kitchen, the contrast of the dark on the white a pleasant sight. Minnie’s eyes lit up when they landed on him, and she instantly tugged her companion over to talk to him. Apparently, she was a history major and loved learning about her own family history and could she ask him a few hundred questions about WW2? Jenny gently urged her to settle down a bit, but Bucky was happy to chat about it if it made the girl happy.

          They came in quick succession after that; Kendra Barnes and Liam Kelly, Becca’s daughter-in-law and son-in-law, came down together, chatting; Sheyna Westing, Timothy’s wife, walked down with Jamie and Stuart Rosser, Rosie’s daughter and son-in-law respectively; Isaac’s mom came down on her own, wide awake and showered; the Baptista boys came down in a herd, which included Jenny’s son-in-law and her daughter’s three boys; Julia, Jenny’s daughter, and Jamie, Jenny’s granddaughter, trailed behind them in a much more regal manner; and the group was finished off with Winnie Rosser, Rosie’s granddaughter, helping Rosie down the hall and into the kitchen.

          Rosie stood in the doorway, staring at Bucky with big blue eyes, eyes that Bucky can remember her using on him to get an extra sweet at the store, for a solid minute. Out of all his sisters, Rosie was the one that trailed after him the most. He was the big brother, the oldest and the coolest, and of course, she adored Steve just as much, which Bucky loved her immensely for. She used to come to their apartment after school to do her homework and listen to the radio. It cut into on some of their alone time, but Steve never minded and Bucky never could say no to any of his girls.

          Bucky went to her, hugged her as tightly as he’d allow himself, and then led her over to the dining table for breakfast. Now he sits beside her, eating his weight in pancakes as Julia Barnes tells him about how she changed her name. As Jenny’s daughter, she was born a Westing, but during her 20s she got really into the family history, him specifically, and changed it back in a fit of spontaneity. She never changed it back again because, well, she liked it. Julia Barnes, it has a nice ring to it.

          “S’not a bad name,” Bucky says, grinning a little. Julia beams at him.

          “God, it’s so strange to finally meet you. I mean, I read about you in textbooks as a kid and I fell asleep to stories about you.” She shakes her head, smiling at her pancakes. “It’s nice to see you’re just a regular person.” Bucky lets her smile for a second before changing the subject entirely.

          “You know you look just like my ma. The spittin’ image.” Julia looks back up and begins to talk about photos and comparisons that’ve been made since she was small. Bucky listens intently, glad the subject was changed without any strangeness; he’s not really ready to talk about just how much, or how little, of a “regular person” he is.

          Cleaning the kitchen is a task left for the youngest of the clan, which includes the six youngest grandkids. Rory Baptista, Jenny’s youngest grand, is on dish duty, with his older brother, Jeremy, on drying. Isaac wipes down the long dining table, including the benches they were sat on, because a breakfast with that many people makes it impossible to be tidy. Reed, the oldest Baptista boy, and Winnie Rosser, named after Bucky’s ma, wipe down the beautiful countertops. Jamie Baptista, the oldest of those kids, and the only girl, sits in a chair and “directs”. If Bucky has any doubts that Jamie was Jenny’s granddaughter, they disappear when he sees that.

          She catches his eyes as she tells Reed that he missed a spot and winks, making him laugh loudly and her beam. He’s shuffled out to the family room with some of the kids, who all badger him with questions about his life. Usually it would make him feel suffocated, but with the almost-familiar faces surrounding him, every one of them grinning widely, he feels nothing but comfortable. So he holds Rosie’s hand with his warm one, wraps the cold one around Jenny’s shoulders and has her hugged into him, and tells the kids about the 20s, 30s, and 40s.

          When the kids are done and Bucky’s shared enough secrets about everyone’s grandmas that his sisters refuse to let him keep talking, everyone starts spreading out more, mostly to the backyard. Several games are set up for everyone’s entertainment; horseshoes, potato sack race, even a dunk tank. Bucky stays on the patio, sitting and chatting with Rosie for a while, before she has to go beat her grandson at horseshoes. He’s alone with his thoughts for a while, which is welcomed, because though he’s loving this, he isn’t used to spending so much time with other people.

          After about fifteen minutes, Oliver, Jenny’s second son, walks over with a plastic cup in his hands.

          “Uh, hello.” Oliver grins sheepishly, blowing his floppy bangs out of his eyes, reminding Bucky of Steve. “I just wanted to say that it’s a real honor to meet you, sir. I uh, I joined the army because of you.”

          “Firstly-” Bucky smiles softly. “Lose the sir. I’m your uncle.” Oliver flushes but smiles back. “Second, tell me about your service. Did you see any action?”

          “Well-” Oliver takes the chair next to him. “I caught the tail end of Vietnam and fought in the Gulf War.” Bucky thinks about mentioning that he killed a few American operatives in Vietnam, but decides against it. It’s not exactly the kind of bonding he’s aiming for. Ollie’s sister calls him away to sit in the dunk tank and he leaves, still a little flustered but not as tense as he was when he first came over. Bucky takes the initiative to go over to Rosie, who’s currently watching a game of touch football involving some of the kids and grandkids.

          “You should play,” Rosie tells him when he takes the Adirondack chair next to hers. Both chairs are painted a lovely light blue and it makes Bucky smile; Rosie Barnes still likes blue, even when she’s a Kensington.

          “I’m more of a baseball man,” Bucky says because he can’t tell his baby sister that he’s not sure if he could handle playing football without harming one of his relatives. Rosie smiles and it hits Bucky that Rosie aged the most even though she’s the youngest. The last memory Bucky has of his little sister was when she was 18 years old and sat on the kitchen counter as he cooked a lunch of spaghetti for the family. It was his last day before he shipped off for England and she was sitting there, swinging her legs against the cabinets, a smile on her face like she didn’t have a care in the world, and Bucky can remember thinking she looked _so young_ at that moment.

          Now here she is. A woman who lived a very long life. At that time, she had been somewhat sheltered; she had never lost anyone like most of her friends, her parents had jobs through the depression, she never really went hungry. But now, at 90 years old, she’s lived and loved and lost and Bucky can see it in her eyes. There’s happiness, sure, a glint in her eye at getting back her long lost big brother, but that happy-go-lucky naivety is gone, and for the first time, Bucky mourns for that little girl with the sweet-sticky fingers who adored the color blue.

          “Did you find out the Dodgers left Brooklyn?” Rosie asks. Bucky just sends her a dark look and she laughs. “Yeah, I thought you’d be torn up over that. Don’t tell Rory that you hate the Yankees though; it’s his dream to play second base.”

          “Rory is…Jenny’s grandson?” It’s still a lot to get straight for Bucky. Everyone looks alike and there are a lot of “R” names and “J” names. He blames it on his parents, who named them that way, J-R-J-R. James, Rebecca, Jenny, Rosie. It was for some family member who had died, whose name was J.R. something and never before had Bucky minded it. Now, it’s getting a little inconvenient.

          “Yes, and Julia’s youngest son. It gets a little confusing, I know.” She gives him a sympathetic look, so he pats at his shirt pocket.

          “I’ve got a tree drawn up.” She laughs again, delighted, and smiles over at him with a funny mix of nostalgia and tenderness. Bucky doesn’t know what it means at first, but then she shakes her head with a sigh.

          “Oh Buck, this is just so lovely. After what Steve told me about what happened to you, I just…” She trails off, eyes going sad. “I just wasn’t expecting this is all.”

          “It took a little while to get here.” He turns to look at the game, those awful sleepless nights flashing by like a blur of despair, but then he laughs as Stevie Barnes tackles her husband and ends up getting an impromptu piggy back ride and it all melts away. “Well, I’ve still got a ways to go.” He turns back to Rosie. “But I like where I’m headin’.”

          Bucky asks a few questions about Rosie’s life, a lot about her husband, who died two years ago and was named Seamus. Bucky actually remembers him from before, at least, he remembers a little red headed Irish kid who wouldn’t stop hanging around his sister. Their conversation is suddenly interrupted, though, by a four year old Latino boy jumping in Bucky’s lap and squealing loudly.

          “Uncle Buck, Uncle Buck, come play dunk with me.” Michael bounces in Bucky’s lap. Bucky looks to his sister for help, but she’s just muffling giggles into her hand. So he wraps his flesh arm around the kid to keep him from falling and carries him over to the dunk tank. All the while, Michael is talking a mile a minute. “Uncle Rhett’s in the tank and I gotta dunk him, I gotta, I gotta. Cause at the start of summa party he sprayed me wit a hose and I gotta get him back.”

          “Alright, kid, we’ll get him.” Michael grins widely and resumes his bouncing in Bucky’s arm.

          “Aw, no fair!” Rhett calls from the dunk tank when he gets within range. “You can’t use Uncle Bucky!”

          “Yes I can!” Michael calls back gleefully. “Mama said I could.” And then, like a true competitor, Michael sticks out his tongue and blows a raspberry at his uncle. Bucky laughs at that, jostling the kid in his arms. “Pumme down, Uncle Buck. I try first.” Michael scrambles out of his arms and runs over to the line marked in the grass about 8 feet away from the dunk tank. He picks up a ball, sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in concentration, and chucks it at the big red and white target that controls the dunk tank’s chair.

          He misses by a good three feet.

          “One more try!” he cheers, not discouraged at all. This time he only misses by two feet, so Bucky counts it as an improvement. “Your turn.” Michael turns to Bucky expectantly. A strange excitement builds up in Bucky’s chest, reminding him of the baseball game he got roped into at the park. Competitiveness, he thinks. When he reaches the line, he bends down and picks up one of the softball sized balls with his right hand, sending Rhett a wicked grin.

          “Aw, come on man. This is not fair and you know it.” He hasn’t been dunked yet, his hair perfectly dry and his clothes the same. It’s hot out though, so really, Bucky’s doing him a favor. Never mind the already-used water that’s just been sitting there for about an hour and a half.

          “I’m just doin’ what the kid asks,” Bucky says, shrugging in a “what can you do?” motion. Rhett narrows his eyes, but there’s a quirk to his lips that gives away his desire to laugh.

          “Just get it over with.” Rhett slumps back, accepting his fate, and Bucky takes his stance. He pulls back into a pitcher’s position easy as breathing and suddenly he’s hit with a memory of pitching a baseball down an alley to a grinning Steve. With that image in his head, he propels himself forward, mentally doing the trajectory math, scarily similar to calculating a shot, and throws the ball with half of the force he’s capable of. The ball hits the target right in the middle and into the water Rhett goes. Michael cheers and Alayna comes running over, sweaty from a basketball game going on about 50 feet away.

          “What’re you boys up to?” She asks, a tired smile on her face as she places her hand on her hips.

          “Mama, Mama.” Michael rushes over to her and hugs her leg. “Bucky knocked Rhett inta the watta.” Alayna laughs and ruffles his hair.

          “You got him back for spraying you with the hose, did you?” He nods eagerly.

          Rhett complains as he splashes around, “You’re the one who told me to do that!” Alayna hushes him with a wave of her hand. Bucky laughs. When Jenny walks by on her way to the horseshoe game, Michael runs off to tell his grandma about the recent events. Alayna comes over to him as Rhett begins to climb out of the tank.

          “Thank you,” she says, eyes earnest like Steve’s always were. “His energy usually, uh, turns people off. So.” She shrugs.

          “I spend my mornings with a teenager hopped up on caffeine. Trust me, Michael isn’t that bad.” Alayna grins thankfully at that, crossing her arms over her chest as her eyes drift towards her son. “If, uh, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you come by adopting him?” She gets a wary look on her face as she turns back to him.

          “Uh, well. I started dating Michael’s mom, Michelle. She actually went by Mikey, so Michael was named after her. He was about 4 months old at the time, actually, and we dated for about 8 months when she was killed in a car accident.” Her eyes go far away and dark as she remembers her lost love. “I adopted Michael because when I fell in love with his mom, I guess I fell in love with him too.” She glances at him, that wariness returning as she does. “I uh, I like girls romantically. I know that might seem bizarre to you.” Bucky shakes his head.

          “No, no I’ve learned a lot about the advancements the world’s made in that respect. It made me really proud, in a way. That the world got better while I was gone.” He raises the left side of his mouth in a half grin. “I’m bisexual myself.” Alayna’s eyebrows go up, her eyes pleased and surprised.

          “Well, that’s lovely to hear. I was a little worried you’d think it was a sin or something.” Bucky scrunches up his face at that.

          “How can lovin’ someone be a sin?” And he knows it was the right answer because she beams at him for the entire time before Rhett picks her up around the middle, himself still dripping wet.

          “Rhett Westing, put me down!” she squeals, hitting ineffectually at his forearms. Rhett laughs, shaking his head so the water in his hair sprays at her. Bucky grins at the display, a memory hitting him of a broken fire hydrant and him, Steve, and his sisters running around in the spray.

          He makes his way into the kitchen just for a short reprieve from the people. He’s loving his family immensely, but it’s still hard. When he gets to the kitchen, though, Becca’s there, mixing up a fruit salad. Bucky doesn’t know why, but he suddenly feels like he has to ask her something. Or tell her something. He’s not sure which. Until he can decide, he sits up on the counter next to Becca and watches her work.

          “Anything interesting you’re lookin’ at?” Becca asks, a quirky smile on her lips. Bucky shrugs and she shakes her head. “Just like you used to.”

          “Whaddya mean?” And Bucky means it. He can’t ever remember sitting on a counter and watching Becca cook. It seems Becca can read that in his expression because she frowns.

          “From about the time you were three to the time you were, I don’t know, 12, you used to sit next to Ma while she made dinner. You told us you just wanted to keep her company, but we all knew you wanted to learn how to cook. At the time, boys didn’t learn to cook and they especially didn’t _want_ to. But you-” Becca smiles down at the watermelon she’s cutting up. “You couldn’t get enough. By the time you were 13 you could cook just as well as Ma.”

          Bucky racks his brain and comes up with a few pictures of staring down into a pan on the stove and studying each movement, every added ingredient, every smell that wafted up to him so he could replicate them later. He smiles when he remembers getting flustered once after Steve asked him why he was sitting like that for so long. When he returns to the present, Becca’s smiling at him and he smiles back.

          “So.” She turns back to her salad. “There a reason you’re sittin’ here?” Bucky shuffles, feeling uncomfortable for some reason.

          “Alayna told me how she got Michael.” Becca nods, telling him to continue. “I uh, I wanted to know how you feel about that.” Suddenly, Bucky knows what he wants to ask his sister, or tell her really. He wants to tell her about him and Steve and realizing that seizes him up with fear. Frozen, he waits for Becca’s reply.

          “It was an adjustment, of course. During our time, it wasn’t something you talked about, you know. But nowadays, she isn’t going to be hurt by anyone and love is a good thing no matter what, in my books. So yeah, I’m perfectly fine with her loving women.” She picks up the cutting board she’s been working on and uses her knife to slide the cut up fruit into the bowl. “And, after you and Steve, I never had a problem with it.”

          With wide eyes and tense muscles, Bucky gapes at his younger sister. When Becca notices him sitting like that, back rigid and holding his breath, she smiles softly.

          “Yes, I knew.” Bucky tries to find the words to respond.

          “Did- how-do the others?” It’s strange; even though he knows Becca doesn’t hate him for loving Steve, there’s still this automatic response of fear, blinding, freezing fear, curling in the pit of his stomach and sitting there like an anvil, weighing him down. It brings back memories he tries to shove away but instead has to suffer through; hating himself for loving his best friend that way, almost being discovered by a neighbor, fearing that his CO will somehow know and he’ll be kicked out of the army and thrown into jail (that is, if he wasn’t killed first).

          “You never told me, if that’s what you’re thinking.” From earlier, she knows firsthand that Bucky doesn’t remember everything, and he silently thanks her for keeping that in mind. “I sort of figured it out. You two were very good at hiding it, at least at the time. What with you going out every other night with a different woman. But, well, I stayed over once because the rest of the house was sick and I didn’t want to catch it, and I saw the way you two looked at each other. And I knew from the moment I saw it, that there wasn’t anything wrong with it. Love like that, how could it be?” Becca shrugs. “I didn’t tell anyone; I only told Jenny and Rosie after Alayna came out. I thought it was a private thing, and since you were gone, I thought you wouldn’t want to tell anyone and I wanted to respect your wishes.”

          They stay quiet for a while after that. Becca tosses the salad together as Bucky stares at his hands, trying to figure out how on Earth he deserved Rebecca Barnes as a sister.

          “There’s a word for what I am, nowadays,” he eventually says. “Since I like dames too I can’t just be gay. I’m bisexual. It’s nice to have a word for it, not just “wrong” anymore.” Becca puts down her wooden spoons and reaches out to grasp one of his hands, the metal one, in her wrinkled, weathered fingers.

          “I’m glad you came, Buck.” He looks up at her, smiling.

          “Me too.”

          The night goes nicely after that. All day it’s games after food after family, again and again in a kind of lovely never-ending circle. When it starts to get dark, they have a huge meal together, so much food and so much mess. It’s like the dinners he remembers from his childhood except on a much larger scale. It’s amazing and Bucky finds his face hurting from smiling so much.

          Between the desserts (everyone loved his pie and didn’t hold back from saying so) and the fireworks, Rosie puts on music from their day and Bucky ends up dancing with anyone who’s willing. The moves are muscle memory, which is nice because he thought the only thing stored there was how to use weapons. From Jenny to Becca’s daughter, Stevie, and even to little Jacey, only two years old, Bucky dances. He gets whistles at his vintage and oh-so-carefully practiced moves, making him laugh with his head thrown back like he remembers he used to.

          When he takes a cab home to the train station that night, he feels at home in his own skin in an extremely satisfying way.

 

*~*~*

 

          He _wanted_ it.

          The memory hit him in the middle of the night, when his walls were down and he couldn’t fend off the awful sizzling colors. It was his first mission ever, before they really got the hang of keeping him in control, before he was ever wiped…

 

          _The night tastes like summers in the country, visiting his aunt’s farm upstate. Fresh grass and humid air, the heat leaving the roads in a bitter tang of asphalt, the damp swamp and the thick trees harsh in their sharpness. He hasn’t smelled the outside in so long, so long he can’t even remember. All he can remember is pain and training followed by more pain. His arm feels weird. Wait, where is his arm?_

_“Enter the house, asset,” a voice in his ear crackles. His grip on the gun tightens and his first instinct is to question why. But even the thought of it reminds him of a whipping pain, stinging across his back in a burning flash, leaving behind welt after welt until the skin there broke. The asset moves towards the house._

_Silently, because that’s been beaten into him along with not questioning orders, the asset lets himself into the large mansion. Security measures have been taken care of beforehand; guards dead, cameras disabled, alarms turned off. He is a ghost, just like they told him to be, but there is no satisfaction in his success. Just a bleak, blank nothingness._

_“Make your way up the first set of stairs,” the voice says again, heavily accented. Only when his heavy boots hit the third stair (though silent, always silent) does the asset realize the voice is speaking in Russian. He doesn’t know Russian. Does he?_

_When he reaches the top of the stairs, the voice tells him to go right so he does, and then stops at the end of the hall. There are two doors, one in front of him and one on his right. The voice tells him to go straight. Inside the door is a bedroom, the large king sized bed housing a sleeping couple. They continue to sleep as the asset makes his way over to them._

_“Kill them,” the voice demands. And so he does._

_A quick slit of the throat for the man, though blood spurts halfway across the room, messing up the pristine tan carpet. The gurgling noise the man makes as he dies wakes up the woman, who gets halfway into a scream before a bullet makes itself at home in her forehead. The asset stands over the bodies and somehow knows these aren’t the first people he’s killed, but for some reason, it feels worse than any other time. That’s when he realizes he feels again; it’s not just emptiness._

_“Plant the knife we gave you.” No, a voice inside his head says, hold on to the feeling, don’t listen to them. The voice in his ear is stronger though. The asset pulls out the perfect replica of the knife he used to kill the man, the one with the special fingerprint on it, and drops it on the ground next to the man’s side of the bed. Then he exits the room only to hear a baby’s cry. His first instinct is to move to the room to quiet the child so Ma doesn’t wake up, but there is no Ma here and the only way he knows how to quiet something is to kill it. He hopes the voice doesn’t make him kill it._

_“Leave the child,” it crackles. “It will die on its own anyway.” No, the asset insists to himself, it is early morning. Someone will come to the house; the newspaper boy, the butler or maid. Someone will come and find the child before it can die. This he tells himself over and over again as he makes his way to the rendezvous point. From there he’s taken to a dark facility where he can no longer smell the summer air and instead his nose is filled with the coppery scent of blood._

_“It will make him forget,” a voice speaking Russian says from six feet away. “Make him more pliable.”_

_“Will it do damage?” a Russian voice asks back. The other must shake his head because there is no response. Or maybe it was a nod. Either way, the second voice says, “Try it.”_

_The asset is directed to sit in a chair, the man’s blood still coating his flesh hand and the baby’s cries still ringing in his ears. The chair isn’t just that, but a machine as well, and the arms attached to it sizzle with energy. It will make him forget, they said. The baby’s cries, the woman’s screams, the feel of the man’s throat as it gave way under his knife. All gone._

_The asset accepts the mouth guard he’s given and closes his eyes. It will make him forget. It is good._

 

          He sat there and _took_ it as they stole away his memories. The first time he was ever in the chair and he wanted it.

          Bucky can’t even _see_ , he’s so angry. Furious enough that his vision goes red and he’s reminded of the man’s blood. It was fine when he fought, when every second of his dreams was filled with the desire to break free, to end the torture and missions they put him through. But knowing that there was a time when he actually wanted their torture, wanted the pain, wanted to _forget_. That makes Bucky feel a multitude of emotions he’s too busy having a panic attack to figure out.

          He slides to the floor of his tiny little bedroom, grips his hair in both hands even though it hurts, and spends what seems like forever talking himself out of a complete breakdown. That’s how he stays until late in the morning when he falls asleep merely out of exhaustion from the panic.

 

*~*~*

 

          “They’re in the back somewhere,” Evie calls to him as she fumbles around in a dim storage room. It used to be her son’s room, but he moved out long enough ago that they turned it into extra storage space. “I swear, it’s a black hole in here. I put things in their place and I come back to find they’ve been playing a game of musical chairs.”

          “Are you sure you don’t need help?” Fretting over someone’s well-being reminds Bucky of Steve when he was skinny and frail on the outside but stubborn and strong on the inside.

          “Hush up.” Evie huffs. “You’re distracting me.” A few sounds of rearranging boxes, a worrying clank, and a noise of triumph later, Evie’s walking out of the room with a big grin on her face. “All of the boxes with blue sticky notes on them need to be brought to the family room. Lucy should be over around three to get them.” Bucky nods.

          “Alright.”

          “When you’re done, come to the kitchen and I’ll give you something to eat for your troubles.” She walks away before Bucky can argue that it isn’t any trouble and that she doesn’t need to pay him in food for it. He gets to work, lifting the boxes out of their crammed-in spaces and bringing them into the room with the matching blue sofa and armchairs. Evie had asked him on Wednesday when he was at the library if he could help her with some heavy lifting and he had automatically said yes.

          Since last weekend, when he had that horrible nightmare, he hasn’t really been sleeping well. Some manual labor, he thought, would take his mind off it in a way that shooting usually did. For a while, he had a half-formed plan about visiting a gun range, but he doesn’t have a license or any official paperwork and he thinks he’s better off not involving the local authorities in his life. After about half an hour of back and forth with moving the boxes, every one of the marked ones are stack neatly in Evie and Charlie’s family room.

          When he goes to the kitchen, Evie is just finishing up on some delicious smelling lemon squares, sliding them onto a pretty plate with a flowery design around the edge.

          “Oh good, you’re done.” Evie smiles brightly at him. “Thank you so much for this. I don’t know why Lucy suddenly wanted all of this old stuff, but who am I to complain? We’ve been meaning to clear out that room for ages, but we never got around to it.”

          “I’m here when you need me,” Bucky says, as he’s used to Evie’s slight rambling. She waves her hand dismissingly at him.

          “I know that, silly.” She huffs, shaking her head. “You’re the only young person I know who volunteers to do work. With your charm and your politeness and that handsomeness. Ugh.” She shuffles over to the counter, putting down the plate of treats. “You should meet my granddaughter. She’s around your age.” She wiggles her eyebrows at him, making Bucky laugh.

          “Thank you, but I’m not looking for love right now.” The laughter in her eyes softens down as she tilts her head at him.

          “What are you looking for right now, hon?” And really, Bucky’s been expecting this. He’s new in town, spends way too much time at a library for a person his age, and his personality is inconsistent at best. His existence, or his being here in town, is a mystery.

          “Right now?” Bucky decides to be honest. “Myself.” Evie smiles again, only a hint of sadness in her eyes, and pats his cheek.

          “I hope you find you then.” Suddenly, the phone goes off, and Evie sighs. “It’s Charlie, no doubt. Missing me too much. Such a clingy husband, that man.”  Her eyes are fond as she complains, grabbing the phone out of its cradle and grumbling into it. “Charlie Benfield, I swear to the lord, if this is about the display I set up, I will…” Bucky stops listening, instead remembering his Ma doing the same. They had a good relationship, his parents. They always loved each other at the end of the day, no matter what fight or problem faced them.

          “Bucky, honey, be a dear and bring the bars into the living room. We’ll sit there and eat them. I’ll be there in a minute with the iced tea.” Then Evie takes her hand off the bottom of the phone and continues to talk. Bucky does what she asks, careful with the pretty plate so he doesn’t break it. When he sets it down on the long coffee table in the room off the kitchen, he goes to sit down on the couch, only to freeze when his eyes catch on the piece of furniture across the room.

          Sitting silently in front of three large windows is a beautiful piano made of a deep, dark wood. Inexplicably, he finds himself drawn to it, and is standing next to it within a few seconds. The fingers of his right hand drift across the keys, remembering the touch instinctually. Suddenly he’s back in the 20s, sitting next to a long haired woman who constantly corrected his hands on the instrument. An old Irish woman was his teacher, a plump lady with used-to-be-red-but-now-was-grey hair and a thick accent Bucky had to struggle to understand.

          She was the church organist and gave Bucky lessons in exchange for him sweeping up the pews. The other boys at school would tease him for it, since his Ma never forced him and it was his choice, but Steve used to beam at him. Once in a while, he’d even tag along with Bucky to his lessons and would sit in the pews with his eyes closed, listening to Bucky’s music with a soft smile on his face. Bucky would’ve played even if he hated it, as long as Steve smiled like that every time.

          “Do you play?” Bucky’s head shoots up, him not having heard Evie shuffle her way into the room. She looks at him with a tender smile like she knows this is something special for him, even though she couldn’t possibly.

          “I used to.” Why is his voice so hoarse? Evie takes a few careful steps forward. She nods at the piano, giving him permission to play. He turns back to it, suddenly feeling intimidated, but sits down on the bench regardless. Because of his teacher, he knows a multitude of Irish songs by heart. His favorite, though, was a sad one called Salley Gardens. He even remembers the lyrics.

          His fingers press into the keys tenderly, like caressing a dame, he compares it to. Knowing the exact way to touch them to get the most beautiful sounds. Both hands, flesh and metal, glide over the piano easily, like water slipping through fingers or hands sliding over silk. Playing is muscle memory, like dancing or using guns, and suddenly, everything feels lighter. The hard nights of the past week fall away, leaving only Bucky and the keys in front of him.

          Careful but strong, he begins to sing, his teacher’s voice in his head as she sang the song from her country with tears in her eyes.

          “ _In a field down by the river, my love and I did stand / And on my leaning shoulder, she laid her snow-white hand. She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs / But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears._ ” The rest of the song stops when Bucky realizes he’s crying for the first time in who knows how long. Evie’s hand is on his shoulder, a comforting weight.

          “That was beautiful,” is all she says and she ignores the tear tracks on his face. Bucky thanks her quietly, but all he can think is _I miss Steve_.

 

*~*~*

 

 

          “Why would a girl even want to play football?” Bucky asks, frowning a little down at his drink. It’s a red color, raspberry, and it tastes delicious. It’s from a place called The Wild Fig and Bucky wishes it was closer to his house so he could have these smoothies all of the time.

          “That’s not the point,” Alyssa says, pausing to slurp up some of her own smoothie. “The point is she should be _allowed_ to play if she wants to.” Natalia nods seriously, though she is too busy with her drink to speak. Bucky squints a little, the skin between his eyebrows wrinkling.

          “So, like the right to choose?” Alyssa nods at him, a proud look on her face.

          “Yes! Exactly. You might not agree with their choices, but everyone is allowed to choose what happens to their body and they should be allowed that choice.” She pats him on the shoulder as a kind of praise and then sticks her hand right back into Natalia’s.

          “So-” Natalia starts. “Do you have any other questions?” Bucky racks his brain, trying to think of something. They’ve already gone through the right to choose, various feminist issues, the way racism has evolved, and how to avoid heteronormativity and hyper-masculinity. Bucky likes having the girls to answer these kinds of questions. Noah is great for the guy stuff, but the girls really make it easy for him to understand things, and really, Noah gets flustered whenever these kinds of topics come up.

          “I don’t think so.”

          “Can we sit down?” Alyssa asks, only whining a little. They haven’t been walking for very long, but she ran a 10K last weekend for charity and is feeling a little sore. Natalia laughs, squeezing her girlfriend’s hand.

          “Sure, babe, come on.” Bucky walks with them over to one of the benches in the park. When they sit down, Alyssa drops her head on Nat’s shoulder and groans.

          “I can’t believe we’re going back to school in a month.” Nat pets her hair soothingly.

          “Where do you go to school?” Bucky asks, taking a long slurp. The smoothie really is delicious. Stupidly, Bucky finds himself wishing he could tell Steve about it.

          “Columbia, in the city,” Nat says. “I’m a med student and Alyssa’s engineering.”

          “I went to school in the city,” he says before he realizes it’s true. Well, sort of. Steve went to art school for a while and when Bucky wasn’t out making enough money to send Steve there, he accompanied Steve and watched him draw.

          “Really?” Nat smiles, her eyebrows up higher than usual. Bucky doesn’t share a lot, so when he does, it’s a nice surprise. “What school?” He squints at that; he can’t remember.

          “I don’t know. It was really Steve that went; he was an art major. I tagged along sometimes.” Alyssa’s head pops up.

          “Wait a minute. Your name’s Bucky and you’ve got a friend named Steve?” She’s looking at him funnily. Bucky nods slowly.

          “Ally, cut it out.” Nat laughs, hitting Alyssa’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, she’s a huge Cap fan.” Bucky’s eyebrows raise at that; Steve has fans?

          “Shut up.” Alyssa goes pink, sitting up further. “I just think he’s a really nice person. And I’ve never met a Bucky who has a friend named Steve before; it’s just a little funny.” She looks so embarrassed and Bucky feels bad about making her face flush as red as a tomato.

          “It’s ok.” Bucky brings up his foot, wearing his red converse with Steve’s shield on them. “I’m a fan too.” Alyssa beams at him.

          “What do you think of him and Bucky? I ship them. Do you?” Bucky squints at her and Natalia reads it as his confused face.

          “Shipping means you think they’d work nicely together, romantically,” she explains. Bucky’s eyebrows shoot up.

          “People think w-they were in a relationship?” he asks. Alyssa nods.

          “It was never definitively proven or anything, but there are a lot of things that point to their relationship being more than just best friends. I mean, really, would you go alone into enemy territory to fight a whole factory of Nazis for someone who was just a friend?” Bucky splutters, at a complete loss for words.

          “It was Hydra, not Nazis,” he says for lack of anything better.

          “Sorry, yeah, Hydra. But I think they loved each other more than just brotherly love. It’s just my opinion.” Bucky’s quiet, looking at Natalia, who’s got a sad expression on her face.

          “What’s wrong, Nat?” he asks. He doesn’t like to see his usually bright and smiley friend so sad like that. She shakes her head.

          “Nothing, I just.” She shrugs. “If Alyssa’s right, I just feel bad for Cap.” She looks up and meets his eyes like she knows him to his core. “His love is gone.”

          The girls sit silently, grasping one another’s hands tightly and praying to themselves they’ll never lose each other. Bucky drinks his smoothie and feels such a heavy despair it’s like he can feel it weighing down his heart. He fleetingly wonders if that’s how Steve used to feel with asthma and makes himself sadder missing Steve.

 

*~*~*

 

          This wasn’t a good idea.

          He’s on top of a building, a sniper rifle in his hands as he takes out any enemy that comes within 20ft of Steve. Apparently, New York City is _the_ place for an intergalactic battle and some strange insect-like aliens with regenerating limbs have decided to spend their Sunday taking over the Earth. Bucky was supposed to spend his day helping Noah plan the perfect one month anniversary date, then exchange the book he currently had ( Fahrenheit 451) with a new one (On the Road), and then maybe try that roast beef recipe that’s been nagging him from the back of his mind for the past couple of days. But no, instead he’s here, much too close to being discovered for his comfort.

          This really wasn’t a good idea.

          He wouldn’t have even come, but then he saw on the news that Steve was here, even though he should be somewhere in Southeast Asia looking for Bucky and well, Bucky kind of panicked. Steve was going to get himself killed if Bucky didn’t intervene (untrue) and he’s been kind of bored without a mission (also untrue) and, _fine_ , he’s missed Steve. Bucky wants to see him again. Granted, seeing him in the middle of a battle covered in alien guts wasn’t the ideal situation, but here he is, and Bucky’s going to take what he can get.

          Wilson isn’t here, or if he is, Bucky hasn’t seen him, which seems unlikely what with the flying around thing. Barton, the Hawk, is a few buildings over doing the same as Bucky but with a bow and arrow (which seems counterproductive, but he’s good with it so Bucky isn’t going to question it). The Widow, Natasha Romanoff, is taking out numerous aliens with two pistols and what looks to be a kind of scepter. The enormous green monster, Hulk, is destroying anything and everything in sight as Iron Man, Howard’s kid, zips by, shooting lasers. Thor, the alien prince, is using a ridiculously big hammer to zap several aliens at once.

          And Steve…Steve has stopped fighting and is instead looking around and up, no doubt searching for Bucky. Why do people think Steve is so smart, again?

          “Idiot,” Bucky mutters, squinting through the scope and taking out three aliens in quick succession. Steve’s head whips towards his direction, eyes scanning over the buildings for a possible perch. Bucky is fairly well concealed behind an air conditioning unit, but Steve’s too practiced in looking through snow covered trees for enemy combatants not to notice the slightly off glint of light from the barrel of the gun.

          “Bucky!” Bucky sees Steve mouth form the word along with hearing it through the coms Bucky patched into. Then the punk disregards the fight entirely and starts running towards Bucky’s building. God, what an idiot. Bucky takes out eleven ( _eleven_ ) separate aliens before Stark realizes Steve has left the fight.

          “ _Capsicle, what the hell are you doing_?” Stark’s voice crackles through the coms.

          “ _Bucky’s here_.” Steve says this like it’s a good excuse.

          “ _Maybe wait until we’re not being swarmed by aliens to try to lure in your brainwashed boyfriend?_ ” Stark sounds angrier than a friend of Steve’s should.  Bucky debates turning the sniper on Stark, just to let out a few warning shots. He decides Steve wouldn’t like that, though, and continues taking out the spider-like aliens.

          “ _Steve, I’m with Stark on this one,_ ” Widow says. Bucky thanks her by taking down the particularly large spider heading in her direction. When she takes down the one she’s currently battling, she sends a salute in his direction without looking, confirming Bucky’s suspicions that she knew he was here the whole time.

          “ _Want me to hit him with a stun arrow for pick-up later?_ ” Barton asks, sounding much too serious for Bucky’s liking. Before any of the Avengers can yell a very emphatic _No_ , Bucky shoots just above Barton’s head in warning. “ _Shit! Never mind. I think he heard me._ ”

          “ _Bucky?_ ” Steve seems to realize Bucky might be listening in to their conversation now. “ _If you can hear me, please just let me know you’re okay. I need to know you’re okay_.”

           Before Bucky can use Morse code and bullets to spell out to Steve to get his head _the fuck_ back in the fight, the Asgardian prince proclaims, “ _I have found the nest. Shall I destroy it?_ ”

          “ _Yes!_ ” Stark says, narrowly missing the spray of rancid-smelling gunk from one alien’s mouth.

          “ _As you wish._ ” And with that, all of the aliens drop to the ground with minimal twitching. With the fight over, Bucky decides that he is no longer needed, and begins to pack up his gun. He stole it off a Hydra base hidden in the city, but he likes it, so he isn’t going to bring it back. The only problem is deciding where to put it. Maybe behind the fridge? Steve continues running in Bucky’s direction, so he keeps his movements fast and efficient; can’t be getting caught.

          “ _Please, Buck._ ” It’s the desperate tone in Steve’s words that makes Bucky pause. A sentence isn’t really interacting, right? He can let Steve know he’s okay, can give him that much. Slinging the duffel bag over his left shoulder, Bucky starts making his way down the stairs and presses the button on his specialized com so he can answer.

          “Talk to Becca,” he says simply. Then he pulls it out of his ear and shoves it in his pocket so he doesn’t have to hear Steve’s hopeful cries and pleads for more.

          On the train back home, Bucky texts Becca, asking her not to tell Steve where he is. She tells him “of course”, which makes him feel both grateful and content, and tags a smiling face with its tongue sticking out along with his reply. Emoji, Bucky identifies it. He looks out the window at the rushing scenery and tries not to think about how good it was to see Steve.

 

*~*~*

 

          “Dude,” Noah says in his serious voice (which is mostly like a concerned frat boy voice). “You look like shit.” Bucky grunts in reply, falling into his seat. He couldn’t sleep at all last night, Steve’s voice ringing in his ears and that stupid look on his face glued to the insides of Bucky’s eyelids. It was like a nightmare, except worse, because it was Bucky torturing himself this time. “We’re getting you a hangover breakfast,” Noah decides on his own, turning and rushing into the kitchen.

          Bucky lets his head fall onto the table, too tired to bother telling Noah he isn’t hungover. He can’t even get drunk. That seems to be a pretty cruel punishment, in Bucky’s opinion. You torture a guy for 70 years and take away his ability to get drunk, so even if he does escape, he’ll never be able to drown his sorrows in liquor.

          “What happened?” The kid asks when he comes back out. His face is creased in worry and suddenly Bucky feels bad about getting him into a bad mood. He’s been so happy lately. At the end of the month, he’s leaving for college (NYU) and Trina will be right in the area (Yale). They’ll be three hours away at most. He’s been giddy about it since the middle of July. The only problem now (which he doesn’t speak of frequently) is getting the money for it. He’s got a partial scholarship, enough to afford tuition, but college is a lot more than just tuition. There are textbooks, necessities like food, gas money for drives to Trina. Not all jobs are as indulging as the diner.

          “Nothing,” Bucky sighs, pushing his hair out of his face with his left hand. “Just tired.” Noah levels him with a look. He’s probably going for intimidating, but he just kind of looks like a skeptical puppy.

          “Bullshit,” he says. Bucky sighs, pulling off his jacket and hoping the shiny arm will distract Noah. It does, for a second, and then he’s back staring determinedly at Bucky.

          “Just this thing with a friend of mine. Been givin’ me trouble.” Noah scrunches up his face.

          “You have friends?” Bucky looks at him dryly and he has the good graces to flush. “Sorry.”

          “An old friend,” Bucky clarifies, picking up a sugar packet and fiddling with it.

          “Like, from your army days?” Bucky laughs, short and humorless.

          “Even earlier.” He sighs again, this time through his nose. “We met when we were just kids, joined the army together, and then got, well, split up, I guess.” He glances at Noah to see he’s watching in rapt attention. Bucky hasn’t shared since telling Noah about his first kiss. Bucky doesn’t know why so many people want to know about his past. “I had very different kinds of assignments than him. And now he wants to meet up again and, I don’t know.” Bucky shrugs his shoulders and drops the pink packet. “I don’t know if I’m ready yet.”

          “Ready for what?” Noah asks. Bucky opens his mouth to say it when he catches Noah squinting at him, his face all scrunched up. His mouth closes with a snap. For a minute there, he forgot how young Noah is. He’s a kid. By the time Bucky was his age, he was already working twelve hour days down at the docks. Steve had already almost died at least ten times; the priest even had come down to say last rites for half of them. They had grown up so fast, but here Noah sat, 18 years old, and still wonderfully innocent.

          “I did things in the army, Noah,” Bucky says carefully, watching for Noah’s reaction so he can know when he’s gone too far. “It changed me. It’s easier with you and people I’ve met after I got out, but with my old friend, he knows what I lost.” Noah’s still confused, which he should be, with all the information Bucky’s leaving out. But he’s wary, nervous for Bucky, maybe even a little scared at what he’s hiding. “I don’t know if I’m ready to show him that yet.”

          “Oh.” Something miraculous happens; Noah goes still. No tapping to some song in his head, no fidgeting in his chair, no heavy breathing. Completely quiet, his expression frozen in an intense mix of gloom and confusion. “Is he, would he not want to meet you if he knew?” Bucky shakes his head.

          “No, no he knows what happened. He’s the kind of stubborn punk who never gives up on his friends.”

          “Then why not? He isn’t going to judge you.” Bucky gives the kid a wry grin.

          “Yeah, well. He’s also the kind of person to put aside his own problems for others. He went through shit too.” Bucky shakes his head, getting hair in his face. “I can’t let him do that.”

          “Well-” Bucky glances up through his curtain of hair to see Noah frowning at the table. “What do _you_ want?” He asks this earnestly, like the only important thing is what Bucky wants. Bucky’s heart clenches in his chest. It’s been so long since someone cared what he wanted, so long since he’s gotten to care. The clench is painful, but it reminds Bucky that he has a heart to hurt. “Do you want to see him again?”

          Bucky laughs softly, more sorrow than mirth, and pushes his hair away from his face, smiling sadly at Noah.

          “More than anything.”

 

*~*~*

 

          Steve used to do this thing when they were younger where he’d wish for something and Bucky would wish back. It would start with something simple, like wishing for a sweet, and they’d keep building onto it until it was this outrageously insane thing. It was the kind of game that only kids who grew up with nothing could get joy from. Steve started it one day when they were about 8 years old.

          “I wish I had a blue colored pencil,” Steve had said. Bucky had turned to look at him, his head dropping. They were on the floor of Steve’s room because his bed was too small to lay spread out on and the weather was too hot to curl together. At the time, Bucky hadn’t known his part, so Steve had told him, “You wish somethin’ back.”

          “I wish Becca didn’t make me do her hair all the time,” he had said, even though it was a lie. He loved doing Becca’s hair up in pretty and intricate braids with ribbons at the end. Jenny had just started getting jealous and forcing him into doing her hair next. Her hair had been curlier than Becca’s so Bucky got to try out different styles. But 8 year old boys couldn’t like doing hair, so Bucky had to pretend.

          “Liar,” Steve had said instantly, his eyes narrowed. Bucky had laughed, grinning.

          “Yeah.” He had liked that Steve could tell when he was lying. Steve was the one person who knew Bucky better than himself.

          “Gimme a real wish,” Steve had said. Bucky had thought over it for a moment and then said

          “I wish I had a new ball.” And back and forth they went. It only ended when Steve had said in a whisper-quiet voice

          “I wish I wasn’t colorblind.”

          The game didn’t always end with heavy stuff. Sometimes it was a mansion or a pool or all the sweets in the world, but every once in a while Steve would wish for a better body, one that could keep up with who he was on the inside. To himself, Bucky would wish the same thing, praying for God to let others see the Steve Rogers who Bucky saw.

          The last time they played the game was right before Bucky shipped off to England, lying in bed, curled around one another despite the heat.

          “I wish I was going with you,” Steve had whispered late into the game. I wish I was staying here with you, Bucky had thought.

          “I wish I could take an entire bag of just smokes and socks with me.” Steve had slapped at his chest hard enough to feel but not to hurt.

          “That wasn’t bigger,” he had scolded. Bucky had looked down at him, knowing that his face read everything he couldn’t say, but Steve wasn’t looking at him.

          “I wish I could have you, just you and me, for the rest of our lives.” By the time Steve had looked up, Bucky’s face was carefully fond once again.

          “I love you.” Steve had smiled, pushing his thumb into the little dimple of Bucky’s chin. Bucky had pressed a kiss to Steve’s thumb, knowing somehow that never again would they be here together.

          With his own thumb pressed into his own chin, Bucky stares at a dark TV. He knows without a doubt that his last wish is still the truest thing he’s ever said.

 

*~*~*

 

          “Buck-ee sad.” Rayna pouts in his arms. They’re out on the town, Bucky, Rayna, and Cris. Rayna’s too tired from their walk around the park, so she’s in his arms, and Cris is fast asleep in his stroller. Isabel’s husband is in for the weekend and Bucky wanted to give them a little alone time.

          “Yeah,” Bucky tells her because he doesn’t want to lie. It’s not like Ray’s going to tell someone else that would listen. Isabel is a sweetheart, but no parent has time to listen to every word that comes out of their three year old’s mouth.

          “Why?” She pats at his chest with an open, pudgy hand, demanding his answer. He quirks his lips in a smile at her and she tugs at his hair.

          “I’m missing my friend.” It’s nowhere near as simple as that, but for Rayna, Bucky thinks it’s a sufficient explanation.

          “Mama miss Grandpa,” Rayna says, nodding her head seriously.

          “Yeah, like that.” Bucky turns them onto the road of the diner. A plate of fries should supply enough of a distraction to finish up the hour.

          “Visit him,” Rayna suggests, perking up at her obviously amazing idea.

          “I can’t,” he tells her sadly. She pouts again, trying to come up with another idea. In the end, the fries get to her before the idea, and she continues on in her usual cheery attitude. Cris wakes up halfway through the snack, but he isn’t fussy enough to have to leave. Noah’s working, as he takes as many shifts as he can on the weekends, so he stops over when he can. But the diner is busier than it is at sunrise, so he doesn’t get a chance to sit down until about forty minutes after Bucky arrived.

          “I can’t believe you’re a babysitter.” Noah grins widely, like this information is the funniest thing he’s heard in his life.

          “Buck-ee great,” Rayna defends. Noah smiles at her.

          “Yeah, he is.” Trying to hide his stupid soft smile at their praise, Bucky turns to Cris, who’s begun to whimper softly. He needs his bottle.

          “Here.” Bucky holds out the baby to Noah, who takes him with wide, scared eyes. “Hold him while I get his bottle.” He starts rummaging through the baby bag.

          “What- what if I drop him?” Noah’s fearful voice asks. Bucky snorts.

          “Just like Steve,” Bucky mutters, pulling out the bottle. Judging by the strange look Noah’s giving him, he heard what Bucky said. Bucky ignores his expression and takes Cris back into his arms. “Alright kid, drink up.” When the bottle is empty, Cris has been burped, and the baby’s started to drift back into his nap in Bucky’s arms, Noah gives him a strangely soft look.

          “You okay, Buck?” Bucky opens his mouth to give some sort of affirmative lie, but Ray cuts him off.

          “Buck-ee sad,” she says, glaring at Noah like he should know this. Isabel was right when she said Rayna doesn’t like anybody.

          “Ray, be nice.” Bucky nudges her and she rolls her eyes, munching on a fry. Bucky sighs. “Well, we should be getting you guys back. Thanks for the company, Noah.”

          Noah nods, getting up from the booth, and says “Anytime,” like he means it. Bucky offers him an attempt at a smile before herding the kids out of the restaurant. They get back to their building and Isabel answers the door with a tired but happy smile.

          “Thank you,” she says, handing the kids off to her husband as she pulls out some money.

          “My treat,” he tells her, shaking his head at the money. She opens her mouth to protest, but he cuts her off. “Buy yourself something nice. It would be a better use for it.” Isabel sighs, tucking the money back in her wallet and smiling at him.

          “ _I wish you weren’t so sad_ ,” she says to him in her native tongue. Bucky blinks, surprised.

          “ _What makes you think I’m sad_?” he asks back. She huffs, rolling her eyes just like her daughter. With two tan, small, calloused hands, she cups his cheeks and looks him straight in the eye.

          “ _A face like this needs more sunshine_ ,” she says emphatically. “ _Resolve the sorrow in you._ ” Then she drops her hands. “Good night, Bucky.”

          “Good night,” he says back, feeling a little dumbfounded. She closes the door softly and he stands there staring at it for far too long.

 

*~*~*

 

          “What I don’t understand,” Rosie says as she pulls yarn through a hole she made with the same yarn. “Is why you haven’t seen Steve yet in the first place?” Jenny and Becca both look at him expectantly, as does Rosie when she looks up from her blanket.

          Apparently, for the past seventy or so years, the three Barnes girls have gotten together at least once a month to talk about anything and everything. Since Bucky is here now, he’s been pulled into it as well. Not that he’s complaining; he’s learning how to crochet and he gets to spend time with his sisters. So far it’s been mostly family gossip and news and a few current events. But then they wanted Bucky to share and he thought that maybe telling them would get it off his mind.

          Unfortunately, Bucky forgot that his sisters are extremely invasive and annoying (he might really love it) (but that’s beside the point).

          “I-I was broken, I _am_ broken. Steve, he, he’d put aside his own problems to deal with mine. I can’t let him do that.” They all frown at him sadly, eyes sympathetic, and he should feel outraged at their pity, but all he feels is comforted.

          “Aw, honey, I know you don’t want to hurt Steve, but you’re hurting yourself and him by staying away,” Becca says emphatically. Steve must’ve been really hysterical on his call to her for her insistent eyes to go to that degree of intensity.

          “And you’ve improved so much in the last couple of months. Are you sure you’re not ready to visit him?” Jenny adds, sounding annoyingly sincere. Bucky kind of loves it.

          “I-I, maybe?” The truth is, Bucky really, _really_ wants to visit Steve. Go back to Steve and stay there. And he kind of does think that he possibly could maybe be ready enough to do it. Really the only thing stopping him right now is the fear of what will happen when he finally does go back.

          “Well-” Rosie finishes a row and looks up at him, smiling warmly. “Whatever you decide, we’ll support you.” Bucky feels his cheeks flush despite his best efforts and turns back to the sweater/possible-blanket he’s making. A few minutes later, when Becca has completely finished her light green sweater for her soon-to-be great-grandchild, she folds everything and puts it away before clasping her hands in her lap and giving Bucky a serious look.

          “What?” he asks, because she’s staring at him so intensely.

          With her voice gentle but firm, she says, “You really should do something about your hair.”

          Defensively, Bucky brings up his flesh hand to pull lightly at his hair. “What about it?” Spookily, all three of his sisters roll their eyes in perfect unison.

          “First of all, it hasn’t been cut in 70 or so years and the split ends are numerous,” Rosie says without looking up.

          “And if you _are_ going to go see Steve, you shouldn’t do it looking like a homeless person,” Jenny adds, glancing at him.

          “And lastly, it’s the perfect time to shorten it. Fall is a time when you shed the past year’s turmoil. Like a blank slate.” Becca smiles warmly at him and Bucky rolls his eyes a little back.

          “Who’s going to cut it? I can’t go to a barber. I’d probably have a panic attack and hurt somebody.” Kill somebody is more probable, but Bucky doesn’t want to tell his sisters that. This time, Becca rolls her eyes at _him_.

          “I’ll do it, you twit, I’ve done it before.” Becca gets up and moves to a drawer in the kitchen, rummaging through it for a moment before pulling out a pair of scissors that are appropriate for cutting hair.

          “I’ll get a towel,” Jenny says, getting up and returning with a light green, nubby towel. The two of them set him up while Rosie continues with her sweater, chattering away about how Stevie (Becca’s daughter) is overworking herself at the hospital. When everything is in place and Becca is poised behind him with a pair of sharp, sharp scissors, Bucky’s heart begins to race.

          “Uh, Becca, I don’t know if this is a good idea.” He digs his fingers into the seat of the wooden chair he’s been placed in.

          “What can we do?” Jenny asks, worry clear on her face. God, Bucky hopes he doesn’t have a panic attack right now. He’s been successful so far in not hurting the people around him since breaking his programming. If his first screw up was killing his sisters he, well, he’d probably never recover (which is a nicer way of saying he’d probably kill himself next).

          “Talk-talk to me. Uh, tell me who-who used to cut my hair.” The sisters look at each other for three long moments before Becca starts stuttering out

          “We-well, when you were young, it was Ma.” She starts cautiously straightening out his hair so she’ll be able to make an even cut. “She wasn’t very good in the beginning, actually. You’d end up with a very choppy haircut, with one group half an inch shorter than the rest. You wore it well, even so, stole some of Dad’s hair product to slick it back. Ma got better by the time you were, I think seven, yeah ‘cause I was four.” Becca makes the first snip as she finishes her story. Jenny winces along with Bucky and hurries to keep talking.

          “Sometimes she’d take you to the barber’s,” she says, the closest thing to blurting the regal Jenny Barnes-Westing has ever done. “We weren’t living in Hoovervilles, but we didn’t have the money for regular trips there. On extremely special occasions she’d take us all to get our haircuts. We’d have to sit through your barber’s appointment. You loved it, sitting in the official chair and getting it done by a professional. You always looked annoyingly handsome afterwards too. When you got your hair cut for your confirmation, all the girls in school wouldn’t shut up about how handsome you were.”

Bucky vaguely remembers his confirmation. Steve and his Ma sat right behind the Barneses. Bucky was actually scolded for waving at Steve during the ceremony.

          “I did it a few times towards the end,” Becca continues on, getting the hang of it now. Half of Bucky’s hair has been trimmed to a nice length by now. It’s still longer than society or the military would’ve permitted back in the 30s, but only comes down past about half his ear. “I’d learned from watching Ma, but I was no barber, no sir-ee. You only let me do it because you didn’t want to make Ma do it. She was really busy before you moved out; she had just gotten promoted to head secretary and had to control the paperwork for the entire firm.”

          “Ma was a lawyer?” Bucky was aware she had a job, but he could never remember exactly what.

          “No.” Rosie shakes her head, once again focused on her work. “She was a secretary at one of the biggest firms in Brooklyn. She didn’t start working until I was in grade school, but we had been struggling up until then.” Bucky half-nods at that, Becca scolding him for moving and almost ruining her work. He knows that they weren’t always well-off, has some memories of having stew for days on end. But he also knows that they never had it as bad as Steve, whose mom worked as a nurse for crap wages because her heart was too big to change professions and because not everyone wanted to hire an out-spoken suffragette.

          “After you moved out and in with Steve, I’m pretty sure he cut your hair.” Becca smiles, but Bucky can’t see it with the position they’re in. “You looked better than you ever had. Artist’s eye, I guess.” Jenny snorts.

          “Yeah, and the fact that he was the one Bucky had to look good for; all he had to do is make it how he liked.” Bucky feels his cheeks heat up as the two oldest giggle together. He glances at Rosie and she’s got a small smile on her face, lips pressed tightly together to hold in her laughter. She must notice his nervous look because she puts down her yarn for a moment and rolls her eyes at him.

          “Don’t you go looking like that, now. No one here cares that you and Steve were silly for each other.” There’s a look in her eyes that Bucky can distinctly remember from before the war. Rosie was the youngest, but she was also the most innocent, the most naïve, and when she would get adamant about something, there was always a part of it that was blind faith. It allowed her to seem so whole-heartedly for her argument that it always made Bucky concede immediately. He sees that in her now.

          “Thanks,” he says simply, smiling one of his easier smiles at her. Instead of smiling back, which he can tell she wants to do by the deepening of the crinkles around her eyes, she nods at him and resumes her work.

          “All done!” Becca exclaims, pulling the seemingly duller scissors away from his head. Jenny hands him a mirror so he can look at himself. It does look neater, he’ll give them that, and for some reason, it makes him feel a lot better to look this different. The long hair was such a drastic change from his old look, but he doesn’t know if he could go back to that style. He’s not really the old Bucky Barnes anymore, but he isn’t the Winter Soldier anymore either. A new haircut for a new person. He likes it.

          “Thank you, Becca.” His voice breaks over her name. She just squeezes his shoulder, his metal one, right on the line between flesh and steel. It should hurt, but really, it’s just grounding.

          “So-” Jenny clears her throat, picking up her own needles and yarn. “You’ll never believe what Rhett told me yesterday.”

          “What’d he say?” Rosie asks.

          “He’s bringing a real live girl to the Labor Day party.” Rosie and Becca drop their jaws so wide it’s comical.

          “It’s a miracle!” Becca cheers as Rosie just starts applauding. Bucky laughs loudly and uncontrollably, feeling so content in his skin, in this house, with his sisters. For a moment, he thinks back to that first day in D.C. when he got back his mind and the only thought he had was _Can I really be fixed?_

          Well, look at him now.

 

*~*~*

 

          A knock at the door thankfully interrupts Bucky’s internal monologue of angst and worry. He stands from the couch and walks over, opening it up to see Tilly Turner, his landlady, smiling at him with a hint of apprehension to it.

          “Bucky, hi, I got your message.” She’s antsy, bouncing in her heels. Dressed in a nice blouse and a slim pencil skirt (Bucky may or may not have watched the most recent season of America’s Next Top Model) she looks extremely professional despite her wary demeanor.

          “Hi Tilly, please come in.” Bucky moves over and allows her through the doorway. He’s talked to her a couple times, only on the phone, since he started renting the apartment. Only about minimal things, like that he broke something and replaced it and that he was very, _very_ sorry. “Would you like something to drink? I have water, coffee, uh, ginger ale?” Bucky may not be very well-versed in the proper social conduct, but he does remember that you always offer a guest a drink when they enter your home. Winifred Barnes would be proud.

          “No, no I’m fine.” She hovers for a moment in the hallway before taking a seat in the armchair at her left. Bucky follows suit and sits across from her on the couch. “So,” Tilly smiles, clasping her fingers together on her crossed legs. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

          “I’m moving out.” Might as well get straight to the point, right?  Tilly immediately loses her professional, polite smile.

          “What?” Her eyes are wide with panic and though he’s confused, Bucky feels bad for causing it. “What? What, why? Is something wrong with the apartment? I can fix it, I promise. Please don’t leave. I can lower your rent?” She’s blurting this all out and Bucky really wants to stay, just to make her feel better, but he’s decided to do it and he has to stick with it. Decisions are still one of his favorite things and it feels like betraying his freedom by going back on it.

          “No, there’s nothing wrong with the apartment, really. The rent is fine too. I’m moving into the city.” Even with his explanation, Tilly bites painfully at her lip, playing with her bracelets.

          “You’re the first tenant I got and you’re leaving.” Bucky’s eyebrows furrow.

          “I was your first tenant? What about the others in the building?” He was under the impression that he was the last to move in. Tilly shakes her head.

          “You’re the first one _I_ got. My grandmother owned the building and she passed away last December. She left the building to me. The apartment had been empty since before she died and I was worried it would never be rented when you came along.” She looks brighter at the memory of that triumph, but slumps once more as she continues. “And now you’re leaving.”

          “I’m not leaving because of you,” Bucky says, finally understanding the problem here. “You are a _great_ landlady, Tilly. Isabel down on the second floor loves you and how understanding you are about when she gets in the rent. You didn’t even bat an eye when I called you to tell you I had broken something and didn’t mention my strangeness the day I moved in. You are a good person and a good landlady and you’re grandmother would be proud.”

          Tilly’s eyes are watery as she smiles at him. “Thank you. We-we were really close and sometimes I worry that I’m ruining her building. So it’s nice to hear that-that I’m doing a good job.” Bucky offers her a smile back, with half of his mouth quirking up. “Well, I’m sorry for freaking out on you. We should talk about you moving out. I’ll need the keys back, obviously, and a forwarding address for your mail…”

          An hour later, they’ve gotten everything worked out. Bucky walks Tilly to the front of the building and she stops before she leaves, turning to him with a warm, bright smile.

          “You look better, you know. That first day you looked sad, dark, broken almost. Now you seem, I don’t know, fixed?” Tilly laughs, adjusting her purse on her shoulder. “I’m being too deep, aren’t I? Anyway-” She turns to go “Have a good time in the city.”

          Bucky watches her walk away, calling “Thank you, Ms. Turner!” after her. She waves without looking back. The first person to help him after he broke free, walking out of his life, most likely forever. It feels like closure, sort of, and he suddenly knows that his decision to go home was the right one.

 

*~*~*

 

          Noah rolls over in his bed, groaning into his pillow with absolute bliss because he doesn’t have to get up at 3:00 in the morning and go work at the diner. He’s going to college next week and that means no more diner job. A part of him is nostalgic, the same part of him that misses high school even though at the time he couldn’t wait to leave, but the other part of him is just extremely grateful for the chance to sleep in.

Though, the biggest part of him worries about Bucky and what happened to him. One day he just stopped showing up and without any real information about him, Noah wasn’t able to find out why. It itches at him every day. He knows that there’s more to Bucky’s story than he’s been told and he’s just worried that maybe that missing part finally caught up with him. If Bucky could just give him _something_ so he’d know that Bucky was okay, Noah would be fine.

          “Noah!” Noah flails and falls out of bed at his mother’s yell. He scrambles out of his twisted blanket prison and rushes down the hall still in his pajamas and stops at the doorway in the living room.

          “What? What’s wrong?” He blinks the sleep out of his eyes to see his mother crying with her hand over her mouth, an envelope clutched in her free hand. She looks up at him and rushes over, hugging him so tight that the breath rushes out of him. “Mom? What’s happening?”

          “Someone-” She hiccups. “-Someone sent you, fifty- _fifty thousand dollars_.” Noah wakes up faster than he ever has in his life.

          “ _What_.” She pushes the envelope at him and he pulls out a slip of paper with his name on it and an amount of $50,000. “Oh my god.”

          “Who would send you fifty thousand dollars?” His mom is still crying and smiling so wide it looks like it hurts. Noah shakes his head, at a loss, when his eyes catch on what’s written where the sender’s name should be.

          _So you can stop sleeping on the job_

          Noah laughs, loud and crazy, and hugs his mom back tightly.

 

*~*

 

          “ _Rayna stop throwing cereal at your brother!_ ” Isabel says in her native tongue. Rayna pouts but listens and starts actually eating her Cheerios. Isabel sighs, turning back to her dishes and scrubbing hard at a very stubborn stain. She’s so tired and she has so many orders today.

          Isabel works at a florist a few towns over. She’s one of the best designers there, if she does say so herself, and as much as she loves the extra money, it’s been harder to leave her kids since Bucky left town. He came and talked to her so she’d know that he wouldn’t be in, but he wouldn’t explain where he was going. As the mother she is, Isabel is wracked with worry about him and Rayna hasn’t stopped asking after him at all the past month.

          “ _Mama, Mama_ ,” Crisanto babbles. Isabel turns to see him giving her a gummy smile. It eases her weariness a little and she laughs. Rayna looks up, pleased at this, and toddles over to the sink and starts playing with the bubbles there.

          “Bubble,” she cheers in English. She doesn’t like speaking Tagalog as much as Cris does, which worries Isabel a little, but it’s probably only because of the daycare she’s been going to. With Cris still smiling and Rayna now completely consumed in the mysterious wonderments of bubbles, a knock at the door draws Isabel’s attention away from her kids.

          “ _Stay put_ ,” Isabel tells them, drying her hands and leaving the kitchen. She walks over to the door and pulls it open, expecting maybe the mailman or Mr. Beckerman from the first floor who sometimes asks for sugar.

          However, on the other side of the door is her father, who she hasn’t seen in five long years.

          “ _Papa_?” She must be dreaming. She has to be.

          “ _Sunshine._ ” Her father’s weathered, sun-tanned face beams at her as he steps forwards and wraps her in a hug that washes away the coldness of the years past.

          “ _Papa_!” She cries, her eyes and cheeks wet. How, what, when? “ _How are you here_?” She hugs him tighter, afraid he will disappear if she lets go.

          “ _A man named Bucky arranged it_. _Oh my sweet Isa, I’ve missed you so_.” Isabel laughs wetly and buries her face in his shoulder. Behind her, she hears Rayna come toddling into the hallway, calling “ _Mama_?”

          _Oh my god_ , Isabel thinks blearily, _my kids are going to meet their grandpa_.

          It might just be the best present she’s ever gotten.

 

*~*

 

          Alyssa is still half asleep on their bed even though she had wanted to get up early to finish up the desk she’s painting out in the backyard. Natalia’s debating if she should wake her girlfriend up or allow her the much needed sleep she deserves (they may or may not have been up late last night for reasons). However, halfway through brushing her teeth, there’s a knock on the door of the apartment that they rent with the help of Natalia’s parents.

          “Can you get the door?” Ally calls from the bedroom. Nat rolls her eyes fondly and spits in the sink before rushing to the front door. Toothbrush still in hand, she pulls it open, wiping at her still-wet mouth.

          “Good morning, what can I-” The “do for you” gets cut off when Nat lays eyes on who’s at the door.

          Steve Rogers, Captain America himself, smiles awkwardly and says, “Hi. Is this where Natalia and Alyssa live?”

          “Oh my-” Nat gapes for a few long seconds before yelling, “Ally! Get in here!” Steve flinches and Nat feels bad for a few seconds before she’s star-struck once again. For all her teasing, Nat is also a pretty big fan of Steve’s and he’s here on her doorstep and _oh my god_ she’s wearing frayed boxer shorts with Steve’s shield on the ass.

          “Whaz happ’nin?” Ally mumbles, stumbling out the bedroom in only a sleep shirt with Thor’s hammer on it. She stops in her tracks when her sleep heavy eyes land on Steve Rogers’ perfection standing on her doorstep. “Oh my god.”

          “Is this the right place?” Steve asks, looking even more nervous by the second. It’s incredibly endearing.

          “Umm, um, yeah. I’m Natalia, that’s Alyssa. Is there, uh, something you needed to talk to us about?” Natalia pulls herself together enough to reply. Steve smiles, reassured.

          “No, nothing specific. One of my, uh, close friends, told me that you were big fans. He wanted to thank you for being a big help in recovering from something and thought you might like a visit from, uh, me.” Immediately, Nat’s mind goes to Bucky. He disappeared a couple weeks ago, wouldn’t answer her or Ally’s texts, and besides the fact that she knows he’s an adult who can take care of himself, Nat is still worried.

          But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Bucky, the man they met in the park who didn’t know a lot about the 21st century, is friends with Steve Rogers, the man who just recently woke up 70 years in the future. Of course, it doesn’t sound easy when you put it like that. But could it really be that Steve found another friend named Bucky 70 years later who actually kind of does look like the original Bucky Barnes?

          _Oh my god_ , Nat thinks as Ally starts beaming at Steve and talking a million miles a minute. _Bucky **is** Bucky Barnes_. He must’ve survived too somehow, he must have. Nat smiles, watching her girlfriend continue to babble at her hero. Ally is kind of reserved, tries to be “tough” because she’s been hurt a lot, but with things like this, her fandoms and stuff, she really lets herself go nuts.

          As she watches the pair of them talk, Steve slowly getting less shy as time goes on, she thanks whatever’s up there making things happen that Steve and Bucky have found each other again.

 

*~*

 

          “Sir, can I just say one more time what an honor it is to each lunch with you?” Charlie is being a complete “fan-girl”, as his granddaughter would say, over his childhood hero. At the moment, he is at a lunch with none other than Gabe Jones of the Howling Commandos.

          About two weeks ago he got a call from Gabe Jones asking him if he’d like to have lunch and just talk with him. Of course Charlie said yes and Evie has been teasing him about his giddiness ever since. The only thing that’s been nagging at him is why Gabe Jones called him up out of the blue and asked to have lunch in the first place.

          “Stop saying that, really.” Gabe laughs, wiping at his mouth with a napkin before dropping it onto the plate. “Now tell me more about your grandson. You said he wanted to enlist?” Charlie nods, still feeling star struck despite himself.

          “Yes, Navy I think. He’s not completely sure yet. His mother is going crazy with worry.” Gabe nods slowly, understanding.

          “My sisters screamed at me when they found out I enlisted. Pop was proud, Mom was racked with worry.” His face turns serious for a moment. “It’s always hardest for the family you leave behind. During the war, it wasn’t like it is now. Letters didn’t always make it in a couple of weeks. I’d go months without a word from them and then I’d be back at camp to find five letters waiting for me. I’ve heard it’s better nowadays, which is nice.”

          The waiter arrives and they pay the check (Gabe insists on splitting the bill despite Charlie’s protesting). Gabe’s daughter is coming to pick him up from the park across the street so they walk over there and take a seat on a wooden bench, facing the bay. Sitting there, mostly quiet and watching the waves, Charlie suddenly remembers Bucky. Bucky is a vet, at least Charlie thinks he is, and though he hasn’t been to the library in a worrying amount of time, it’d be nice to know if Gabe has any experience with that.

          “A man started coming to the library and I think he was a vet,” Charlie mentions.

          “Really? Why don’t you know for sure?” Gabe has this smile on his face like he knows something Charlie doesn’t. Charlie, true to character, just smiles kindly back.

          “He was very reserved. He hardly told me or Evie anything about himself. But the way he held himself; always aware of the exits, jumpy and alert. I don’t know.” Charlie shrugs his shoulders, watching a seagull run away with a stray grape from a picnicking family a couple dozen feet away. “He hasn’t been coming in recently. I’m a little worried about him.”

          Gabe doesn’t reply for the longest time, long enough that Charlie turns to see if anything is wrong. When he does, he sees this far-off look in Gabe’s eyes. Soon, he blinks away the look and smiles at Charlie kindly.

          “I think he’s alright.” A horn honks and they both turn to see a blue Honda with the window rolled down at the curb. Gabe stands up, Charlie following suit. “That’s my ride.”

“It was great to meet you,” Charlie says as Gabe takes a step towards the car.

“Likewise.” Gabe turns back one last time to grin knowingly at Charlie. “Don’t worry about the vet, Charlie.” He turns back towards the Honda. As he begins to make his way to the car, he throws one final sentence over his shoulder, “Sarge always knew how to take care of himself.”

          For three long seconds, the words don’t register to Charlie, but as he watches the Honda drive away, his mouth drops open in literal shock.

 

*~*

 

          The doorbell rings and Evie scrambles to get up to answer it. She pulls open her front door to see her granddaughter, Ann Marie (who everyone just calls Annie) and her, apparent, new boyfriend. The boyfriend looks clean, well-dressed, and with a look on his face the perfect mixture of politeness and nervousness. Excellent.

          “Annie!” Evie wraps her granddaughter up in a tight hug, though she does have to reach up a significant distance. For a moment she’s wistful, remembering a time when Annie didn’t come up to her waist, but it’s gone in a second. She pulls back from their hug to give the boyfriend a more scrutinizing look. “And look at this handsome devil.”

          “Gram, this is Rhett.” Annie smiles anxiously, looking back and forth between her grandma and her boyfriend. Rhett sticks out his hand.

          “Hello, Ma’am. I’m Rhett Westing.” Evie makes him wait a long second before taking his hand.

          “Nice to meet you, young man. I’m Evie Dunett, the woman you’ve got to impress if you’re going to get anywhere with my Annie.” Rhett’s eyes go a little wide and panicky at that.

          “I don’t-we haven’t-I-” Annie, thankfully, cuts him off.

          “ _Gram_ , you promised.” Evie rolls her eyes and pats Annie’s cheek.

          “Let an old woman have her fun. Now come; I’ve made meatloaf.”

          Dinner goes surprisingly well. Charlie is working tonight so there’s no one to hold her back from asking the really invasive questions, but Rhett must be used to them or something because he takes them like a pro. Parents not divorced, one sister who’s gay and has a son, huge extended family who Annie is meeting this weekend for Labor Day. Goes to college in the city, lives in the dorm but is planning this year to crash at his uncle’s place a lot, majoring in marine biology, and gets good grades except for his English elective, which he took to challenge himself, but is enjoying anyway. Overall, he seems like a pretty good kid.

          Evie mentions something about Captain America apparently participating in a parade in the city on Labor Day and Rhett nods, looking excited. He swallows his sip of water before responding.

          “I’m actually related to one of the Howling Commandoes,” he says. Evie’s eyebrows go up in surprise and Annie looks interested in a way that shows this is news to her too.

          “Really?” Evie asks. Rhett nods again.

          “My grandmother is Jenny Barnes, Bucky Barnes’ little sister.” Rhett looks endearingly proud of himself for bringing that up.

          “That’s so cool,” Annie says, grinning stupidly at his silly pride. God, they’re goofy for each other. Evie huffs to herself.

          “I actually met a Bucky Barnes recently. Not the same one, obviously.” Evie’s heart pangs for a moment as she remembers her friend. He hasn’t been around in so long. There’s no way he’s still in town and she’s just worried there’s something wrong. At her words, Rhett looks even more excited.

          “Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of people named their kids after him.” There’s a sparkle in Rhett’s eye that gives away his secret. He knows something Evie doesn’t. She narrows her eyes at him.

          “What aren’t you telling me?” Rhett smiles sweetly.

          “What would make you think I’m not telling you something?”

 

*~*~*

 

          The building isn’t covered in security like he thought it would be. There aren’t any agents surrounding it, no surveillance in the apartment or the foyer (Bucky did his homework) and he’s made it all the way to the front door without being ambushed. To be honest, Bucky’s a little disappointed. Also a little angry at the idiotic punk who probably is the reason for such little security.

          The building is almost nothing like their old one in Brooklyn. While this building is also in Brooklyn, it’s nicer, heated better, and cleaner than their old one. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s funny how he kind of misses the creaky floorboards and dust piles in the corners.

          He’s stalling and he knows it.

          Bucky fidgets. Arms shuffling inside of his well-worn jacket, shifting his weight back and forth from foot to foot. It’s something an assassin would never do, especially not the Winter Soldier. It’s grounding, the thought that he’s so different from the weapon he used to be. It gives him the strength to do what he has to do next.

          He raises his flesh arm in the air and knocks on the door with only a little hesitance. As footsteps make their way closer and closer to the other side of the door, Bucky tries to focus on the reason why he’s doing this to push away the fear. When the footsteps stop just outside the door, Bucky remembers all the people who got him to this point. His family, Noah and Trina, Isabel and Rayna and Cris, Alyssa and Natalia, Evie and Charlie. The people who helped him fix himself so he could stand on Steve’s doorstep ready to come home.

          He’s ready and he’s not and he wants to but he doesn’t and he knows without a doubt that this is the right thing to do.

          The door opens.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again! Thanks for making it all the way through! I hope you enjoyed the story and, if you did, comments and kudos would be lovely!  
> If you're wondering if I'm going to continue this, I will be. There is both a prequel and a sequel planned however it might be a while before they are out.  
> Thanks for reading!


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